Member Info for RayPointer

I think I get this.

The extreme desert

You stress the cancer with an injection directly into the tumour thus causing autophagy and citrullination.
Then the CD4 killers do their work (whether they are created by Moditope the vaccine or TCR)

Yes and hopefully the %age of patients who fail to respond with Modi1 the vaccine is very small.
The immune desert

Yes
But doesn't the scenario I have described fit with this.
Modi1 has not managed to produce activated T cells in the required number.

Just continuing with this line of thought

Patient treated with Modi1 does not respond (perish the thought)

Try the following diagnostics

a) Do Modi1 activated T-cells exist in great numbers (i.e. has the APC end of the process worked)
b) Do the Modi1 targets exist on the surfaces of stressed Tumour cells

if "No" to a) and "Yes" to b) then perhaps TCR is the obvious treatment.

I would imagine test a) exists today but test b) will not. So a collaboration would focus the diagnostic research on Moditope targets on stressed cells.
Maybe BionTech is the partner we need for this.

Anyway, back to work.

It's interesting.

I don't for one second suggest that Scancell should do their own work on these kinds of diagnostics.

But a pharma may think I want to collaborate with Scancell to link my diagnostics with Moditope targets.
This, in turn, may actually influenze what additional targets should be included on future Moditope vaccines

https://immuno-oncologynews.com/2018/06/06/merck-foundation-medicine-collaboration-developing-diagnostic-tests-keytruda/

Here is an example of the more sophisticated diagnostics

"With this collaboration, the two partners are aiming to develop a companion diagnostic to measure MSI-H across all cancers. They also plan to develop companion diagnostics for tumor mutational burden (TMB) as well as other potential biomarkers to measure response."

These types of diagnostics are aimed at finding what exists on the surface of tumour cells. These are the ones I am thinking may be expensive.

Incidently, wasn't the restriction of HLA-A2 positive removed with a version of SCIB1 created some time after the SCIB1 trial.
This, in effect, doubles the potential market for SCIB1.

However, I think Scancell are going with the original version for the combo trial

Inclusion Criteria:
HLA-A2 positive.
Positive for HLA-DR4, HLA-DR7, HLA-DR53 or HLA-DQ6.

I would have thought these are detected by conventional blood and/or skin tests. I may be wrong on this.

So, yes, I agree that, if and when SCIB1 is an approved drug these tests would form part of normal diagnostics.

Blackmail springs to mind LOL

Yes, I agree.
But cost will come into it. The most likely treatment using conventional diagnostics may, for example, be Modi1.
The diagnostics being developed by big pharma may be costly and perhaps only available in certain widely spaced locations.
I am not suggesting that the treatment goes like, try drug a, if no response try drug b etc.
I am suggesting that if the patient has sarcoma, for instance, and there is no evidence why Modi1 should not work, then go for Modi1. If that does not work plan b is to use the more sophisticated (but possibly costly) diagnostics to hopefully find a better treatment.

Cost effectiveness may come into it.
On the other hand, if the sophisticated diagnostics are relatively cheap and widely available, they could form part of the plan A treatment.

Pure speculation, but it may be a new collaboration with BionTech.
Better the devil you know.
As long as it does not delay the 3 planned trials.

As an example.
Lindy as always said that Moditope is powerful enough to work without a CI.
This may not be the case with all patients.
So, try the patient with Moditope first. If the response is poor, investigate why with diagnostics which may point to a better combination or perhaps TCR.

I agree Ruck.
If Moditope works that should do the trick for the majority of patients without the need for a personalised treatment.

Big pharma are working on diagnostics. Having found exactly what targets a particular patient exhibits, they still need something that goes after those targets.

In the end, it still boils down to targets.
There's possibly a collaboration there that wouldn't involve a great deal of work by Scancell.

https://www.the-scientist.com/features/neoantigens-enable-personalized-cancer-immunotherapy-31743

Maybe Scancell see a big future in personalised treatments and still want to collaborate.
But who with?

"Samantha will be invaluable in immunological design of the upcoming trials and spearheading the new TCR therapeutics and I am very excited to add such an experienced scientist to the team."

So Sam will also get involved in trial design. An all rounder.

I think Sam's appointment and crumb's finding of Lindy's search for more classes of targets are connected.
It shows that Scancell now have the confidence to appoint a head of research to take some of the load off Lindy. This leads Lindy free to concentrate on the cutting edge research.
So Lindy finds the targets and Sam directs the work to prove and refine the targets.

Also with Sam's expertise in TCR technology it augers well for the Biontech collaboration.
Scancell will not be pursuing their own TCR technology but as the collaboration progresses there may well be research that needs to be carried out by Scancell rather that Biontech.

All in all, a very encouraging sign.

"If we take the SCIB1 trial for instance. What is the chance of those results can happen by chance.
You could actually have a stab or working it out by using 5 year expected chance of survival for stage3/4 melanoma patients."

In fact, I will have a go at that over the weekend.

Agreed inan

There are shades or success and failure in reality.
And the bigger the patient numbers and the bigger the differential , the less likely the result is "by chance".

Then there is always a suspicion that patient selection was biased in some way. Not necessarily intentionally but maybe by accident.

If we take the SCIB1 trial for instance. What is the chance of those results can happen by chance.
You could actually have a stab or working it out by using 5 year expected chance of survival for stage3/4 melanoma patients.

Success or Failure are the outcomes (although you could argue there are different levels of success or failure)
But, for simplicity, let's just say 2 possible outcomes, success and failure

The probability of success is someone's view on how likely success is.

Trinity's probabilities will be based on the probability of success based over a number of similar trials.
Its not about possible outcomes (failure or success) but probability of success