Exploiting the potential of in vivo nucleic acid elecroporation

Il 12/07/2013 ore 14.30 - 15.30

Aula Seminari IBP, Istituto di Biochimica delle Proteine, CNR
Via P. Castellino, 111
80131 Napoli

In year 2001 Prof. Ciliberto started at IRBM a new program entirely dedicated to Cancer Immunotherapy and focussed on the development of Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines. The program capitalized on the previous expertise matured by Ciliberto and his collaborators about in vivo somatic Gene Therapy program.

The group initially defined a solid platform technology capable of inducing strong and durable immune responses towards self-tumor associated antigens (TAAs). This very innovative platform consists in the sequential use of Adenoviral vectors and DNA electro-gene-transfer in heterologous prime-boost sequence. This technology was complemented by a variety of additional approaches aiming at improving TAA immunogenicity, such as generation of fusion proteins with immunoenhancing moieties and optimization of codon-usage. Finally the group focussed on a subset of well defined tumor antigens here listed: Ep-CAM, CEA, ErbB2, Telomerase and MMP11. Generated prototype Cancer Vaccines against them, and demonstrated their efficacy in mouse tumor model.

A subset of these vaccines were chosen by Merck as pre-clinical candidates and advanced into clinical development.

At the end of his permanence at IRBM in year 2009 Prof. Ciliberto started efforts towards the study of cancer stem cells and some surface receptors that are emerging as potential new targets for therapy of cancer. In particular Prof. Ciliberto is currently involved in two projects: a) the first, in collaboration with University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Department of Molecular Biology and Medicine is the directed to the establishment and characterization of a biobank of Lung cancer stem cells from malignant pleural effusions; b) the second is focussing on the study of monoclonal antibodies directed against one surface receptor of the ErbB family, namely ErbB3/HER3 which seems to be involved in mechanisms of resistance to EGFR and HER2 inhibitors.

At present Prof. Ciliberto is the Scientific Director of IRCCS Istituto Nazionale Tumori, “G. Pascale” Napoli, Italy, and Full Professor of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Catanzaro "Magna Graecia". From January 2013 he is President of SIBBM (Società Italiana di Biofisica e Biologia Molecolare), co-author of more than 200 indexed publications. He has large experience in Technology transfer as witnessed by Co-inventorship in 27 international granted patents/patent applications. Reviewer and editorial board member of several international journals and editor of textbook for graduate students.

Organizzato da:
CNR, IBP

Referente organizzativo:
Daniela Corda
CNR - Istituto di biochimica delle proteine
Via P. Castellino, 111 80131 Napoli
d.corda@ibp.cnr.it
081/6132536

Modalità di accesso: ingresso libero