Engineering an ICD stimulated dendritic cell derived exosome-mimetic vaccine against cancer antigens

Such DC ELVs possess the entire complement of peptide-MHC molecules and T-cell co-receptors present on the surface of the parent dendritic cells, allowing them to bring about a cell-mediated tumour immune response while maintaining a much greater level of stability. While such cell membrane-derived vesicles have been studied in several ways in the context of cancer therapy (e.g. drug delivery and tumour targeting), their use in a vaccine setting has been limited up to this point.

This project’s central aim is to produce DC ELVs from DCs that have been pulsed with tumour cells undergoing ICD to provide a nanoscale acellular cancer vaccine. We first demonstrated the induction of the ICD phenotype within the CT26 cell line following mitoxantrone treatment. Following this, we produced an ICD pulsed DC ELV formulation, which we showed to conserve the surface-marker integrity of the parent cells and display stimulatory activity within primary-DC populations.<br><br><i>Thesis is embargoed until 31 December 2026</i>.<br><br>