When Tofu isn’t Turkey . . . 

We’re in Lisbon at the European Immunogenicity Platform meeting (EIP -OK, somebody has to do it!). Alex Sette just finished his talk about the new IEDB tool for de-immunization. We’re thrilled to hear that he’s getting on the “OptiMatrix” (in silico de-immunization) bandwagon but want to point out a key concern – when taking T cell epitopes, don’t remove Tregitopes! ISPRI’s OptiMatrix has Tregitope and Treg epitope checking built in, as recommended by the FDA (see below):

More news from Lisbon: To MAPP or not to MAPP? That’s a good question. Data recently published by Karle, Spindeldreher, Kolbinger on the MAPPS assay are very similar to results predicted by in silico tools in an assay that took about 60 minutes (with formatting). See below: this in silico data from ISPRI was presented by Vibha Jawa, representing the AAPS IPAPA group and Merck. You tell me: Which approach is faster? Which approach is more cost-effective? And we ask again, why not get on board with [high quality] in silico tools? What’s up, Novartis?

Role of Tregitopes in tolerance to biologics? T cell epitopes found in monoclonal antibodies drive IL-10 secretion and reduce anti-drug antibodies in inflammatory bowel disease. Stay tuned while we check to see if the peptides driving tolerance in those assays were Tregitopes. See Abirisk paper on Infliximab and IL-10 by Vultaggio, Maggi et al.

One of these ADA risk factors is not like the other: Also reported by the ABIRISK collaborative in Lisbon – Older age, thinner body habitus, cigarette smoking, antibiotic use and flu vaccination were associated with the emergence of ADA (this data is not published yet, hopefully soon). See available data here: Link, Ramanujam et al. What do we think? We think that anything that drives inflammation may down-regulate tolerance (and Tregs) and drive anti-drug-antibodies and immunogenicity. A caution – antibiotic “reporting” is not antibiotic use – and reporting may be an indication of “feeling sick” a.k.a being in an inflamed date. Curious? Check your inflammatory cytokine levels next time that you get a cold (and don’t take biologics – or antibiotics- at that time unless you have to!)

Pictures of Paris! 

Pre-ISV: Computational Vaccinology Workshop
October 4th, Institute Pasteur, Paris, France

The workshop in Paris was quite educational with Khan, Amino, Bertino, Richard, and Terry hosting. Take a look back at the time we had!

And Tokyo!

Westin Immunogenicity Seminar 2017
October 16th, The Westin Tokyo, Meguro, Tokyo

We had a great meeting last month in Tokyo with our colleagues at the Westin Immunogenicity Seminar – Mariem Dembele desribed the effect of Tregitopes in a murine allergy model, and Eduardo Guillen presented the new Factor VIII Tregitope (to be presented at ASH next month). Check out some pictures from the event! 

Why not – Amsterdam!

3rd Annual Immunogenicity and Tolerance Seminar 2017
November 9th, The Hilton Apollolaan, Amsterdam

The conversation on November 9th was very lively – with Wim Jiskoot, Ab Osterhaus, Bram Slütter, Jagadeesh Bayry, Eduardo Guillen, Vincent Lombardi, et al. Thanks for attending, and see you for the 4th I&T next year!


Blog

CAR-T can be immunogenic too! [https://epivax.com/news/epivax-oncology]

EpiVax Seeds New Venture: EpiVax Oncology [https://epivax.com/news/epivax-oncology]

EpiVax awarded $5.8M Award from NIH for Immune-engineering Flu Vaccine [https://www.bit.ly/H7N9_partnerships]

Tregitope Takes a Step Toward the Clinic [https://www.epivax.com/news/tregitope-takes-a-step-toward-the-clinic/]

Personalizing the response to Cancer [https://epivax.com/blog/epivax-epivax-oncology-ready-take-cancer]

The Ancer to Cancer? [https://www.epivax.com/news/will-epivax-tools-be-the-ancer-to-cancer/]

Upcoming Events:
We’ll See You There!

Antibody Engineering & Therapeutics 2017 [https://lifesciences.knect365.com/antibody-engineering-therapeutics/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAi7XQBRDnARIsANeLIetbDVAPt9YTAY8GaJv35naaO-donQCYefT-KZ74DJiJdVZ5BAzj9McaAqMrEALw_wcB]

ImmunoTX Summit [https://www.gtcbio.com/conferences/immunotx-summit/]

New Publications

Tregitope:
Circulating Normal IgG as Stimulator of Regulatory T cells: Lessons from Intravenous Immunoglobulin [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28916232]

Vaccines:
An immunoinformatics derived DNA vaccines encoding human class II T cell epitopes of Ebola virus, Sudan virus and Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus is immunogenic in HLA transgenic mice [https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/Hpz2eRYGIuz5bs2NHRjA/full]

Making Vaccines Against Stealth Viruses:
Expert Review of Vaccines [https://bit.ly/JMX_Expert_Review_Vaccines]

 

To learn more about our services, please click the links to the left,
or contact our Business Development Associate:
Steven Vessella (Asia) (svessella@epivax.com)
Katie Porter (Europe) (kporter@epivax.com)
Visit our webpage www.epivax.com
Or click here to join our newsletter