BLUE BELL, Pa., June 17, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Inovio
Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE Amex:
INO) announced today that its subsidiary VGX Animal Health,
Inc., a developer of DNA-based vaccines and therapies for companion
and food animals, has achieved strong T cell responses from
VAH-5000D, its DNA vaccine encoding telomerase reverse
transcriptase (TERT) for the treatment of dogs with cancer. This
preclinical data was presented by Dr. Douglas Kern, DVM, VGX Animal
Health’s Vice President of Business Development, at VetHealth
Global 2011, an international animal health conference.
In mouse experiments, vaccinations with a highly optimized TERT
DNA vaccine delivered by electroporation induced strong
TERT-specific T cell immune responses. Furthermore, vaccination
with the TERT vaccine delayed the growth of implanted tumors in
mice and increased the survival rate of mice with tumors.
“We are pleased to see promising results in animal trials with
our optimized TERT vaccine for dogs,” said Dr. Kern. “Because of
the prevalence of TERT in tumors, we believe that a canine specific
TERT vaccine could become the go-to ‘universal’ cancer vaccine for
dogs.”
TERT is a catalytic subunit of the enzyme telomerase. Telomerase
lengthens telomeres, which are structures at the end of chromosomes
(DNA strands in the nucleus of all cells). Telomeres protect the
ends of chromosomes from destruction and normal cell death. The
mammalian cell divides anywhere from 60-100 times throughout its
life cycle. Each time this division occurs, telomeres are shortened
until they no longer serve to protect the chromosome. This is the
basis for the aging process in mammals. When telomerase begins to
function abnormally, the cell can become immortal. This process is
thought to be important in the development of several types of
cancer. Human TERT (hTERT) has been proposed as a cancer-specific
target, since
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