{"id":163965,"date":"2020-08-31T07:09:25","date_gmt":"2020-08-31T11:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=163965"},"modified":"2020-08-29T16:19:31","modified_gmt":"2020-08-29T20:19:31","slug":"uconn-health-carogen-collaborate-promising-technology-colorectal-cancer-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2020\/08\/uconn-health-carogen-collaborate-promising-technology-colorectal-cancer-treatment\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn Health, CaroGen Collaborate on Promising Technology for Colorectal Cancer Treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers at UConn Health and CaroGen Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company based at UConn\u2019s Technology Incubation Program (TIP)<\/a> facility in Farmington, have developed a promising clinical candidate for colorectal cancer treatment.<\/p>\n

Kepeng Wang, assistant professor of immunology at UConn Health and a member of CaroGen\u2019s Scientific Advisory Board, identified CARG-2020 as an oncolytic vector \u2013 a virus that infects and kills cancer cells \u2013 with the capacity to impact three critical cancer pathways.<\/p>\n

Using CaroGen\u2019s patented Artificial Virus for Infectious Diseases and Immune-Oncology (AVIDIO) platform, CARG-2020 targets three pathways by releasing an RNA expressing three immuno-modulators, each formulated to modify one of three pathways.<\/p>\n

The novel benefit of CARG-2020 is that it can attack all three pathways at once. Scientists have previously had limited successes targeting these pathways individually.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey each carry out a unique function,\u201d Wang says. \u201cWe think this combination approach will be the strongest immunology against cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first pathway, IL-17, promotes tumor growth and impedes the recruitment of anti-cancer T\u2011cells. IL-12 is a cancer-fighting pathway normally shut down in tumors. It supports the development of T\u2011cells. The PD-1 pathway also supports tumor growth by binding to T\u2011cells and making these cells less active against tumors.<\/p>\n

According to initial data, this approach is proving effective at not only regressing solid tumors, but preventing their regrowth.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really groundbreaking,\u201d Bijan Almassian, chief executive officer and co-founder of CaroGen, says. \u201cWe hope to expand this collaboration and go beyond colorectal cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The AVIDIO platform, developed by Yale University School of Medicine professor John Rose more than a decade ago, was licensed to CaroGen in 2012. The diverse platform has many applications in the treatment and prevention of cancer and infectious diseases.<\/p>\n

CARG-2020 is also being tested in other solid tumors including ovarian and liver cancer. In\u00a0 addition, CaroGen is working with scientists from Yale to develop a COVID-19 vaccine using AVIDIO.<\/p>\n

Wang\u2019s lab has been working with CaroGen since 2016 when professor and chair of immunology at UConn Health, Anthony Vella, introduced them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work very well together and I\u2019m very proud to be part of that,\u201d Wang says.<\/p>\n

This collaboration outlines a fruitful business model in which research labs and corporations support one another\u2019s missions for the overall advancement of science.<\/p>\n

\u201cUConn Health is a source of a lot of innovation and great science, and collaboration is easy, given our location at UConn\u2019s business incubator, the Technology Incubation Program (TIP),\u201d Almassian says.<\/p>\n

The next steps for CARG-2020 are to seek funding to bring it into a clinical trial setting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been extremely productive and efficient,\u201d Almassian says. \u201cWe\u2019re addressing a major unmet medical need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wang holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research focuses on the role of interleukin-17 (IL-17) family cytokines in colorectal cancer development and therapeutic intervention.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow UConn Research on<\/em> Twitter<\/em><\/a> &<\/em> LinkedIn<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UConn Health researchers, along with industry partners, have developed a promising potential candidate for treating colorectal cancer. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":163966,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2231,2076,1868,179],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1902],"class_list":["post-163965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-well-being","category-research","category-meds","category-uconn-health"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 11:08:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163967,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163965\/revisions\/163967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/163966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163965"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=163965"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=163965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}