GBM Rationale for Combining PD1 Inhibitor DNA Vaccine

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Andrew S. Chi, MD: Vaccines against WT1 and human telomeres have been studied in other cancers in clinical trials. It’s been shown that antigen-specific T cells have been induced against those specific vaccines. We have some human data that demonstrate that those 2 vaccines can potentially drive T cells into the tumor. There haven’t been clinical trials that look at the combination of vaccines against those antigens as well as PD-1, but that’s part of the reason why I think this is an interesting study. Not only are we going to vaccinate against these antigens and hopefully educate T cells and drive T cells into the tumor, but also we are going to combine it with a PD-1 inhibitor to allow the T cells to act against the tumor.

There are a number of preclinical studies in glioma that have shown efficacy of PD-1 inhibitors in syngeneic mouse models, in general, in combination with other modalities, including radiation, local chemotherapy, as well as tumor vaccines. As monotherapy, PD-1 inhibitors really have very little efficacy in syngeneic glioma mouse models. But in combination there is significant preclinical efficacy that’s been observed in these models, when you combine them with vaccines.

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