British techbio innovator Etcembly has launched a groundbreaking new research study aiming to uncover new targets for cancer immunotherapies by analysing the immune cells of cancer survivors.
The ETCh study is recruiting people aged 18-65 who are living with or have survived cancer to join the study, as well as healthy volunteers. Participants will be asked to donate a small amount of blood up to five times over the course of one year, and provide information about their health.
The ETCh study is rooted in the well-established concept that long-term survivors have beaten cancer due to their immune system’s ability to recognise and eliminate cancerous cells. However, a systematic search for the specific targets recognised within tumours has yet to be undertaken.
In this study, blood samples will be collected from people who are living with or have survived cancer as well as healthy individuals. The research team will conduct an extensive analysis of the immune repertoire at an unprecedented scale by sequencing millions of antibodies and T cell receptors (TCRs) from each participant.
Etcembly’s advanced AI platform, EMLyTM, will then perform an in-depth analysis to identify which of these are likely to play a role in recognising and destroying cancer cells, and determine the aberrant molecules in tumours that they target.
These molecules could become new targets for next-generation immunotherapies that harness the power of a patient’s own immune system to combat cancer. The team expects to identify new targets within 12 to 18 months, which will then enter Etcembly’s pipeline for developing novel TCR-based therapies.
This approach will allow Etcembly to delve deep into the immune response of cancer survivors and find vital clues to future cures.
Nick Pumphrey, Chief Scientific Officer at Etcembly says, “There is an urgent need to discover new cancer targets that traditional approaches have largely failed to deliver. By approaching the problem from the opposite direction we can identify TCRs and targets from cancer survivors that have proven their ability to beat cancer, allowing us to develop therapies that are more likely to work for others.”
Visit https://www.etcembly.com/long-term-survivor-study to learn more about the ETCh study and find out how to participate.
