Member Info for RayPointer

Lindy is just so used to working on small budgets and having to fight for research grants. So, she thinks very carefully before initiating a project. Tremendous value for money is a phrase that springs to mind.

Einstein was working in a patent office in Switzerland when he was formulating much of his science. He was so good at his job that his employers gave him free time to work on his theories. It just shows that it is quality and not quantity that matters.

The moditope mantra LOL

A vidity is high
T arget set that is extensive
T oxicity is low
A Tcell that is really amazing
C ancer is defeated (we all hope)
K nowledge of Lindy is key

Yes
I was hoping to spark a debate on a comparison of mRNA technology and Scancell's approaches.
Lindy doesn't seem to need the sort of resources that BionTech or Moderna have access to in order to progress her approaches. Certainly more finance would come in handy but not on that sort of scale.

It always seems to me that Lindy has a much more focused approach.

e.g.
The glycans Mabs lost their killing power when the Mab was humanised. It looks like this was due to reduction in avidity. Enter a novel approach to restore that avidity and indeed increase it. At the same time add extra killing potential. To crown it all, it can be applied to any Mab.

It looks like mRNA is facing many obstacles with no guarantee it will work. After 20 years where will Lindy's technology be? .....

The CEO of Moderna reckons it is a 20 year job

https://cen.acs.org/business/start-ups/mRNA-disrupt-drug-industry/96/i35

Certainly in the case of mNRA it seems that BionTech's pipeline is not as far advanced as Scancell's. In fact it is early stage technology.

Lindy stated that the Scancell part of the Biontech Collaboration was at least 6 months behind. She was then asked when commercial discussions were likely to start. I couldn't make out her reply from the recording. Could anyone enlighten us of what she said.
This would be much appreciated.

https://www.pacificimmunology.com/resources/antibody-introduction/what-is-an-epitope/

Although only a few paragraphs, but I think this explains it in an understandable way.
It talks about antibodies binding but I would have thought that the same principles apply to TCell binding.

Well as I understand it Yes.
The antigen may be a protein containing long strings of amino acids. A very large structure.
The epitope typically is around 7 amino acids in length and there may be more than 1 per antigen.

Beat me too it crumbs

44.00 onwards on the recording or thereabouts

18 epitopes - all give T Cell response
from 5 different antigens

5 epitopes give a tumour response
from 4 different antigens

In Lindy's presentation
I think she said that 18 homocitrullinated epitopes had been identified, all showed a T Cell response and 4 showed a tumour response and these 4 would be the basis for Modi2.

In the QandA she stated that BionTech are also interested in Moditope vaccines as well as Moditope targets for TCR.
She said Scancell's part of the Modi1 TCR collaboration was at least 6 months behind and then I couldn't make out the rest of her answer.

I will have a re-listen later tonight and see if I can make it out.
Perhaps the people that were there could help.

This is my understanding

An epitope is the part of an antigen recognised by the immune system e.g. T Cells.

A peptide is a chain of amino acids in the range of 2 to 50. Larger chains are proteins but the definition seems a bit blurred.

Peptide epitopes are epitopes that are peptides. When peptides are epitopes they are typically about 7 amino acids in length. When proteins are expressed, targets in the form of peptides are often presented.

Modi1 is a vaccine that carries 3 peptides that are also epitopes on the tumour surface.
Modi1 is injested into specific types of Antigen presenting cells. These then present the 3 peptides to T Cells that recognise these peptides. There will be a specific TCell for each peptide.

So there are not loads of T Cells that recognise a peptide - only 1 specific type. Typically how many of this specific type there are in a normal healthy body I don't know. But it doesn't matter too much how many there are since once activated clonal expansion takes place. The Activated T cell clones itself and the clones in turn clone themselves.

Lindy and her team have so far identified 40 such peptide epitopes.

This is all IMHO but I thought it might be useful to define a few terms. Remember I am John Chiplin and not a research scientist.

The first article posted mentioned the potential of the mab combined with chemo. Lindy stated in the AGM that Mabs with the Avidimab treatment could be used to deliver chemo drugs with precision.

It may be a Scancell sponsored project. They do tend to pop up from time to time.

This looks like a different Mab to the ones Scancell acquired from NUTAC. But, no doubt, it could receive the Avidimab Treatment.
It looks like much of the research was done at Manchester Uni, another Poundland Biontech branch?

Having listened to the recording (many thanks miavoce), it was confirmed that the Biontech collab is still the 3 Modi1 targets, not 40 targets as was suggested. So, 37 are up for grabs in the TCR world including a numbers of modi2 targets.
So a distinct possibility is another TCR collaboration perhaps with the most promising modi2 targets. It may be BionTech again but who knows it could be another moditope fan (Ira Mellman and Genentech springs to mind).
But pure speculation.

Scib1 combo 1st dose
Nothing on Biontech - just a guess
Maybe a 2nd Avidimab collaboration
CRUk may update the Scib2 trial status to pre clinical
Modi1 trial still on track or more likely start date slips
1 left field item , always possible with Lindy's contacts
Patents granted, always likely with so many going through

I thought RG's take on why no SCIB1 deal was interesting. The window was closed on cancer vaccines because of so many failures. Now he thinks it is open again. He said at the time how difficult it was to get access to big pharma at the board level.

I really hope Sally is successful in getting new UK or even European centres started without having to pay for Keytruda. I suspect her prediction of all 25 patients recruited is based on new centres added soon.

The hiring of Sam Paston now makes perfect sense.