Latest Cancer immunotherapy Stories

Researchers at the Moores UCSD Cancer Center are injecting a modified herpes virus into melanoma tumors, hoping to kill the cancer cells while also bolstering the body's immune defenses against the disease.Gregory Daniels, MD, PhD, assistant clinical professor of medicine at the UC San Diego School of Medicine and his co-workers are comparing the modified virus treatment, called OncoVEX GM-CSF, to general immune system stimulation with the immune-boosting protein GM-CSF in an international...

- Results from a randomized Phase IIb trial reported at 2009 ASCO Annual Meeting - MISSISSAUGA, ON, June 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - YM BioSciences Inc. (NYSE Amex:YMI, TSX:YM, AIM:YMBA), a life sciences product development company that identifies and advances a diverse portfolio of promising cancer-related products at various stages of development, today reported that results from a randomized trial of nimotuzumab (aka BIOMAb/TheraCIM/h-R3) in patients with inoperable,...

After over 30 years of tinkering with dangerous radiation, chemotherapy and surgical treatments for cancer patients, doctors are beginning to see some success in using a much gentler form of treatment: the body's own immune system.The new approach is being called the cancer "vaccine", though this is something of a misnomer as it is used for treating rather than preventing cancer.Researchers at a weekend conference for cancer specialists said that they had successfully used these vaccines...

In a first, immunotherapy works against neuroblastomaA multicenter research team has announced encouraging results for an experimental therapy using elements of the body's immune system to improve cure rates for children with neuroblastoma, a challenging cancer of the nervous system.John M. Maris, M.D., chief of Oncology at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, co-authored the phase 3 clinical trial, which was led by Alice Yu, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of California, San Diego. Maris...

Adding an antibody-based therapy that harnesses the body's immune system resulted in children living longer with a child cancer, U.S. researchers said. Lead author Dr. Alice Yu of the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, said neuroblastoma, a hard-to-treat cancer arising from nervous system cells, is responsible for 15 percent of cancer-related deaths in children. The therapy targets a specific glycan -- a complex sugar chain found on the surface of cells -- on...

A phase III study has shown that adding an antibody-based therapy that harnesses the body's immune system resulted in a 20 percent increase in the number of children living disease-free for at least two years with neuroblastoma. Neuroblastoma, a hard-to-treat cancer arising from nervous system cells, is responsible for 15 percent of cancer-related deaths in children. The researchers reported their findings "“ the first to show that immunotherapy could be effective against childhood cancer...

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., May 14 /PRNewswire/ -- AlphaVax announced today the completion of enrollment in a Phase I/II CEA cancer immunotherapy study being conducted by the Duke University Comprehensive Cancer Center, Durham, NC. This Phase I/II study is an open-label, dose-escalation study to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA(6D))-expressing virus-like replicon particle (VRP) immunotherapy in patients with advanced or metastatic...

OSLO, Norway, April 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Affitech AS, the human antibody therapeutics company, announced today that preclinical data on two fully human anti-PS (phosphatidylserine) antibodies were presented by its collaboration partner Peregrine Pharmaceuticals at the 100th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) 2009 held during April 18 - 22, 2009 in Denver, CO. The preclinical studies of PGN635 and PGN632 provided further confirmatory evidence that the...

A team of scientists at The Campbell Family Institute for Breast Cancer Research (CFIBCR) at Princess Margaret Hospital and international collaborators have discovered how to trigger an improved immune response to cancer that could be included in new clinical trials that use a patient's own cells to destroy tumors.The findings, published online today in Nature Medicine (DOI: 10.1038/nm.1953), demonstrate the tantalizing potential of immunotherapy in cancer treatment, says principal...

Study Presented at 2009 AACR Meeting Highlights Potential Therapeutic Approach to Treat Patients Unresponsive to Erbitux and Vectibix DENVER, April 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Micromet, Inc. (Nasdaq: MITI), a biopharmaceutical company developing novel, proprietary antibodies for the treatment of cancer, inflammation and autoimmune diseases, yesterday presented non-clinical data at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). These non-clinical data indicate...