Advaxis' Listeria-based cancer vacc starts preclincial tests

Researchers at New Jersey-based biotechnology company Advaxis have say they are working on a suite of new vaccines to treat women with different types of cancers, including breast cancer.

A team led by Yvonne Paterson, the company founder and professor of microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, have centered their efforts on Listeria monocytogenes, a bacterium found in dairy products that, when introduced into the body, has an extremely powerful, direct stimulatory effect on the activities of immune killer T cells.

In early studies, Dr Paterson used the Listeria bacterium to deliver the tumor-associated protein HER-2/Neu to immune cells which eventually enlist killer T cells to seek out and destroy the tumor cells that over-express the HER-2/Neu molecule. The vaccine, which is called Lovaxin B, is now in preclinical testing and the company is planning on manufacturing sufficient quantities of the vaccine for testing and is seeking US regulator approval for a clinical trial.