Financial viability and technical evaluation of dendritic cell-carrying "vaccination nodes" for immunotherapy

Cancer immunotherapy attempts to stimulate the immune system to reject and destroy tumor cells. Despite the amount of ongoing intensive research to prevent cancer, tumor cells continue to evade immune responses. Currently, dendritic cell vaccines are in development, in which autologous antigen-loaded dendritic cells are injected back into the patient in order to generate an appropriate immune response. Improving upon this idea, members of the Irvine laboratory are in development of an injectable dendritic cell based formulation that gels in situ around the tumor site. In this way, immune cells (most notably T cells) can be recruited and become activated against specific tumor antigens, and (hopefully) kill tumor cells. Recent studies have shown the potential benefit of incorporation of cytokine interleukin-15 complexed with its soluble receptor interleukin-5R[alpha], which is discussed. Economic considerations are also discussed, including topics such as intellectual property, barriers to entry, initial markets and market drivers, and entry into the current supply chain considerations. A business strategy is outlined and evaluated.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Song, Andrew, M. Eng. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Darrell J. Irvine.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/45353

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/45353