Crystals of IgG Antibodies
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Older adults who have recently finished chemotherapy for breast, colorectal, or bladder cancer may be eligible to participate in a clinical trial at the NIH Clinical Center.
Cancer survivors age 60 and older have weakened immune systems, often caused by cancer treatments. These patients are more prone to infections and infectious diseases of many kinds because the immune system is the body’s defense against foreign invaders like bacteria and viruses. In healthy people, some of these infections can be prevented by vaccines, but because their immune systems are weakened, cancer patients’ response to vaccines is weak. Ronald E. Gress, M.D., Senior Investigator and Chief of the Experimental Transplantation and Immunotherapy Branch, is leading a study to see if a drug can boost cancer survivors’ immune systems. The drug, NT-I7, is composed of a form of interleukin-7 (IL-7), a human protein that promotes the growth and survival of several types of T cells that play a central role in immune response. The IL-7 portion of NT-I7 is fused to part of a human antibody that extends the life of the agent. Investigators want to see if NT-I7 is able to boost the response to vaccines in patients who otherwise may not be able to respond.
Clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT04054752
NCI Protocol ID: NCI-19-C-0134
Official Title: A Phase 1/1b Study of Enhancement of Immune Reconstitution and Vaccine Responses With Administration of Recombinant Human IL-7-hyFc (NT-17) in Older Subjects Following Chemotherapy
The Center for Cancer Research is NCI’s internal cancer center, a publicly funded organization working to improve the lives of cancer patients by solving important, challenging and neglected problems in cancer research and patient care. Highly trained physician-scientists develop and carry out clinical trials to create the medicines of tomorrow treating patients at the world’s largest dedicated research hospital on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
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