Allele Biotech Receives Funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to Produce Cancer Antigens

Cancer formation is a heterogeneous and complex process, involving many factors and cellular signaling pathways. There are more than 1,200 potential cancer biomarkers identified in the literature by a 2006 review, which, if analyzed in multiplexicity, may provide the best potential for reliable and early detection of cancer. Many proteins including most cancer antigens become post-translationally modified (PTM) during the “secretory process”, which involves of a journey from their site of synthesis in the rough endoplasmic reticulum (ER), through the Golgi apparatus and then to various cellular and extracellular destinations.

Examples of protein modifications include glycosylation, phosphorylation, acetylation, and amidation. Of these, the most complex procedure is glycosylation, involving several enzymes. There are increasing demands for these glycosylated human proteins in good quantity, purity and affordability by the scientific community to perform fundamental and clinical studies in relation to cancer. Such proteins can not be expressed in bacteria or yeast because those cells do not carry out equivalent PTM as in mammalian cells. Allele Biotech has chosen a modified baculovirus expression systems (MBVES) as the main method for producing glycoproteins and the proposal was chosen by the NCI for funding of $150,000, approximately 75% of the cost of producing 10 glycosylated cancer antigen proteins in the first phase of 6 months. The remaining funding of ~$50,000 mostly in indirect costs will be covered by Allele’s own funds. This SBIR contract will be partially subcontracted to the University of California , San Diego (UCSD) during the glycan analysis phase. The work will be performed in Allele’s San Diego facility and UCSD’s GlycoTechnology Core facility.


This news is released by Allele Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals, Inc. through AlleleNews, for in-between experiments