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Mission Statement
Our mission is to provide cancer patients with optimized immunotherapy that is personalized on the basis of their own unique tumor signature. By identifying the DNA alterations present in the cancer cells of each patient, we generate enriched and tested, highly specific T cells that, when administered to the patient, kill the patient’s tumor cells.
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About
PersImmune Inc., was founded in 2010 with the mission of developing precision cancer immunotherapy tailored to each patient. The company’s founding officer is Dr. Antonella Vitiello (Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer). Dr. Vitiello’s career as a ground-breaking cancer researcher and her own successful fight with cancer drive the company’s passion to develop safe and effective cancer therapies that preserve the patient’s quality of life and avoid the devastating side effects of currently available cancer treatments.
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Our Approach To Cancer Therapy
Read MorePersImmune, Inc. believes that no cancer patient should be excluded from treatment. Our technology produces a customized cell therapy that is specifically tailored to treat the patient’s unique cancer.
Identification of tumor neoantigens
Samples of tumor cells and normal cells are removed from the patient, and the cellular DNA is isolated and sequenced. By comparing the sequences from the two cell types, we can identify DNA mutations that are present in the tumor cells only. These mutated DNA sequences are converted to the corresponding protein sequences, and the mutations are verified. These mutant proteins are the tumor-unique neoantigens.
Selection of potentially immunostimulatory tumor-specific neopeptides
Not all tumor neoantigens will stimulate an immune response. PersImmune has a proprietary data-analysis pipeline that streamlines the sequencing and screening process to accelerate the identification of potentially immunostimulatory neoantigens.
Selection of tumor-specific patient T cells
T lymphocytes (a kind of white blood cell) are purified from a patient’s blood sample and cultured with the candidate neopeptides identified in the preceding step. As the T cells grow and divide, they are screened for their ability to recognize and kill cells expressing the neopeptide. T cells passing this test are then checked in vitro for the ability to kill the patient’s tumor cells.
Expansion of tumor-specific T cells for infusion
T cells that have the desired neopeptide specificity and tumor-killing ability are grown to large numbers in the laboratory and prepared for administration to the patient. This individualized T cell mixture is then delivered to the clinical site for infusion into the patient.
Phase 1 immunotherapy that will assess the safety of adoptive T cell therapy
PersImmune, Inc. is actively recruiting patients with Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS) to a Phase 1 Clinical Trial of immunotherapy at University of California San Diego, Moores Cancer Center. The clinical trial employs infusion of the patient’s own T cells after the T cells have been enriched to react specifically against the patient’s unique tumor cells.
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