Marrow-Derived Antibody Library for Treatment of Neuroblastoma

Neuroblastoma accounts for 15% of all pediatric cancer deaths in the United States; we urgently need new therapies to improve survival. Our long-term objective is to develop new patient-specific therapeutic antibodies to treat neuroblastoma. It is well known that a patient will develop antibodies that target their own cancer. However, recovery of a patient's immune cells that produce anti-neuroblastoma antibodies to their own tumor has not previously been done. This proposal is designed to identify the B cells of neuroblastoma patients that produce antibodies against their own tumor. We will do this by growing both the neuroblastoma cells and the same patient's immune cells. Then we will screen thousands of the immune cells for production of anti-tumor antibody. The set of anti-tumor antibodies will then be assayed for the ability to kill the cancer both in a dish of growing cells and also in a special mouse that has been implanted with the patient's tumor and immune cells. Neuroblastoma tumors are notoriously heterogeneous, and developing personalized antibodies may be the only way to generate effective therapies. Successful application of this research will result in a portfolio of anti-neuroblastoma antibodies and is a strategy to more rapidly bring therapeutic antibodies to this patient group.