Clinical Validation of In Vivo Imaging for Detecting Immune Dynamics

ongoing

VIVID is a project on the Clinical Validation of In Vivo Imaging for Detecting Immune Dynamics. Optimising cancer treatment is a challenge, especially with combination therapies and patient variability. The ability to study cell migration in a quantitative and non-invasive manner in vivo, of endogenous cancer-fighting immune cells and administered therapeutic cells is essential for biomarker-driven and personalised clinical trials. Our imaging agent, BEACONs, allow for multimodal, quantitative imaging of cell populations; here with quantitative 19F MRI and fluorescence. This project will demonstrate and validate the feasibility of cell tracking using multimodal imaging and increase the maturity of BEACONs (to TRL 5-6) through a first-in-man clinical trial in current cancer standard of care. Our specific objectives are to 1) Set up a clinical trial of interest to large pharma, here the imaging of labelled immune cells in a neoadjuvant setting; 2) Build a business plan and create a spin-off; 3) Ensure that any new IP is protected; 4) Perform outreach towards patients and end-users. The potential societal impact of using BEACONs includes being able to assess and adapt complex therapies in major diseases such as cancer organ transplants, allowing a more targeted treatment and reducing patient burden such as negative side effects of ineffective treatment. The economic benefit of using BEACONs is large, while also reducing animal use, and enabling early assessment of cell therapies and cancer therapies. VIVID allows the application of our technology in a new field -that of personalisation of cancer therapy- aside from cell therapies, increasing our potential customer base (oncology drug market expected $285B in 2023).