Yonsei University Develops New Substance That Boosts Immune… Presents New Opportunities For Cancer Vaccines: Indie Focus

A domestic research team has developed a new immune-enhancing substance and presented a platform that can be used in a cancer treatment vaccine.

The research team of Professor Emeritus Seong-Hoon Kim from Yonsei University (concurrent position at the Joint Institute of Science and Technology and the College of Medicine) and the joint research team of Xymedi developed the ‘UNE-C1-conjugated Cancer Vaccine’ ,’ which combines the immune peptide derived from human UNE-C1 and a tumor antigen It was announced that the mechanism of action and efficacy of ‘UCV’ have been identified.

The results of this study were published in the international academic journal ‘Molecular Therapy (IF 12.4).’

A cancer treatment vaccine is a way to treat cancer in the body by activating the immune system using cancer-specific antigens. Compared to existing treatments, it has fewer side effects and has the advantage of reducing the recurrence of cancer, but there are problems such as low efficiency or an autoimmune reaction to it because the body’s immune system does not recognize cancer-specific antigens well. Therefore, a new approach was needed to increase efficiency and reduce side effects.

A joint Yonsei-Xymedi University research team developed UCV by combining UNE-C1 with a tumor antigen peptide (E7) derived from human papillomavirus (HPV-16), which causes breast cancer. It has been shown that this conjugate vaccine can significantly increase the anti-cancer effectiveness of existing tumor antigens.

Through experiments using a tumor mouse model, the research team showed that UCV effectively delivers tumor antigens to dendritic cells, thus increasing the activity of T cells that have anti-cancer functions. In addition, it has been shown that when given in combination with a PD-1 blocker, an immune checkpoint inhibitor, it can significantly inhibit the growth of cancer and significantly improve the survival time compared to the administration of a PD-1 inhibitor alone.

Professor Seong-Hoon Kim said, “We demonstrated that UNE-C1, a unique protein structure found in the human enzyme CARS1 (Cysteinyl-tRNA Synthetase 1), specifically delivers cancer vaccines to dendritic cells . ” this study, “We expect it to be an immunity-enhancing platform that will be widely used to significantly improve efficiency and increase responsiveness,” he emphasized.