A new study published on Wednesday in the journal New England Journal of Medicine shows that researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles have found the principle of patients with advanced melanoma immunotherapy showing drug resistance with the help of recombinant proteins. "This would help us better design the next generation of therapies," lead author of the study, tumor immunology program director Dr. Antoni Ribas at UCLA said.
Immunotherapy drugs such as Bristol-Myers Squibb's Opdivo and Merck's Keytruda are capable to achieve long-term remission or even cure some cancers. Some recombinant human proteins also have the effect. Other patients may have a response to immunotherapy drugs at the beginning, but a few months or even years later, the cancer recurred in their possession. Melanoma is the most deadly form of skin cancer. Dr. Ribas estimates that 40% of patients with melanoma have a response to immunotherapy, but about a quarter of these patients will relapse within three years after treatment.
UCLA researchers studied melanoma tumor biopsies of cancer recurrence patients after receiving Keytruda treatment. A patient's tumor lost B2M gene, thereby altering the way of immune system recognizing cancer. While the tumors of two other patients showed the defects of blocking JAK1 and JAK2 gene function, limiting the ability of the immune system to kill cancer cells. The researchers have failed to find a similar gene variant in the fourth generation of tumor biopsies.
Dr. Ribas believed that these findings might be commonly applied to all PD-1 therapies. PD-1 protein is a tool used by tumor cells to evade the immune system. He also noted that finding drug resistance mechanism may help explain why some patients completely don't produce immunotherapy response. Dr. Ribas said, "If we understand this process, we may be able to customize better therapy for patients." Flarebio offers high-quality recombinant proteins such as recombinant CDH10.
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