Young Kwang Chae, Professor and Co-Director of Developmental Therapeutics, Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern University, shared a post on X:
“Breakthrough in Glioblastoma!
Dr. Tanner M. Johanns, Elizabeth Garfinkle, and the team at Washington University have published a pivotal Phase 1 trial (GT-20) in Nature Cancer, offering new hope for newly diagnosed, unmethylated glioblastoma-a disease notoriously resistant to immunotherapy.
Key Findings
- Overcoming Heterogeneity: The team utilized multi-sector tumor sampling to engineer GNOS-PV01, a personalized adjuvant DNA vaccine delivering an unprecedented payload of up to 40 unique neoantigens per patient after surgery and radiation.
- Robust Immune Response: In 9 evaluated patients, the vaccine was safe and successfully induced potent, broad-spectrum peripheral T-cell expansion (except in one patient on dexamethasone).
- Promising Survival Signals: The trial achieved a 12-month OS of 66.7% (median OS: 16.3 months), with 33% of patients surviving past 24 months—including one long-term survivor beyond 4 years.
Clinical Impact
Technological Leap: Moving from traditional peptide platforms to a high-capacity DNA system allows researchers to outmaneuver glioblastoma’s complex intra-tumoral heterogeneity without adding toxicity.
Next Steps: While the ultra-small cohort (n=9) requires cautious interpretation, this platform marks a highly significant shift toward truly individualized, multi-targeted immuno-oncology for immunologically ‘cold’ tumors. Larger, combinatorial trials are eagerly awaited.”
Title: Adjuvant personalized multivalent neoantigen DNA vaccination for MGMT unmethylated glioblastoma: a phase 1 trial
Authors: Elizabeth Garfinkle, Renzo Perales-Linares, Ryan Gimple, Alexandra Livingstone, Kaleigh Roberts, Omar Butt, S. Peter Goedegebuure, Michael McLellan, Gue Chang, Jasreet Hundal, Jian Yan, Jaye Navarro, Sophia Paxton, Srestha Chattopadhyay, Neil Cooch, Alfredo Perales-Puchalt, Konstantina Stavroulaki, Sarah Rochestie, Joann Peters, Beth Junker, Jian Campian, Milan Chheda, Michael Chicoine, Albert Kim, Jon Willie, Gregory Zipfel, Joshua Dowling, Christopher Miller, Obi Griffith, Malachi Griffith, William Gillanders, Katherine Miller, Elaine Mardis, Niranjan Sardesai, Gavin Dunn, Tanner Johanns
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