THE PRINCIPLE

Dendritic Cells (DCs) capture, process, and present antigens to the immune system. Amphera ex vivo extracts and activates cancer patients’ own (monocyte derived) DCs enabling them to present tumour-associated antigens (TAAs) to the immune system. On returning the activated DCs to the patient, they migrate to the lymph nodes, where they induce an immune response,  including NK-cells, B- and T-cells, to attack the tumour.

This ex vivo process is essential because in cancer patients, DC-function is suppressed by tumour-derived soluble factors that inhibit differentiation, maturation and therefore immuno-stimulatory function of DCs. This leads to a defective induction of cytotoxic T-cell responses and ultimately a defective anti-tumour immune response.

The principle behind Amphera’s DC cancer therapy is to generate DCs outside the patient’s body in the absence of the immune suppressing tumour micro-environment, where it is possible to load the DCs with TAAs. Treatment of patients with these activated DCs reinvigorates the immune system to attack the tumour.