Therapeutic vaccine for equine melanoma

• Grant number: 04/02503-0
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Innovative Research in Small Business - PIPE
• Start date: October 01, 2004
• End date: June 30, 2007
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Veterinary Medicine
• Principal Investigator: Cristina de Oliveira Massoco Salles Gomes
• Grantee: Cristina de Oliveira Massoco Salles Gomes
• Company: Oncocell Biotecnologia Ltda
• City: São Paulo

Abstract

According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the equine population in Brazil is around 6 million, of which it is estimated that between 180 and 480 thousand suffer from melanoma, which leads to a considerable economic and genetic loss in the farming market.Melanoma is particularly common in horses with dapple-gray pelage, after the age of five. Current treatments are based on the application of chemotherapies, immunomodulators and/or surgical resections which present a high level of toxicity, iatrogeny and low effectiveness. The use of hybrid dendritic-tumor cell vaccines in human patients carrying melanoma and carcinoma of the renal cells showed promising results. In view of this, the present project aims to verify the efficiency of the same methods for equine tumors. The effectiveness of the use of a variant of immunotherapy which will use hybrid cells generated by the fusion in vivo of tumor cells with differentiated equine dendritic cells will be analyzed. This project intends to use, in an unprecedented manner, the dendritic cells drawn from the equine peritoneal cavity in the preparation of an anti-tumor vaccine. If the attempt is successful, it will have produced an efficient therapy for equine melanoma and a new way of producing dendritic cells. (AU)