The Israeli company Biolojic Design will conduct a trial for cancer patients in Australia with a new type of drug.  Aulos Biosciences is now recruiting cancer patients to try it’s world’s first antibody drug designed by a computer. The computationally designed antibody, known as AU-007, was planned by the artificial intelligence platform of Israeli biotech company Biolojic Design from Rehovot, in a way that would target a protein in the human body known as interleukin-2 (IL-2). The goal is for the IL-2 pathway to activate the body’s immune system and attack the tumors.

The clinical trial will be conducted on patients with final stage solid tumors and will last about a year – but the company hopes to present interim results during 2022. The trial has raised great hopes because if it is successful, it will pave the way for the development of a new type of drug using computational biology and “big data.” Aulos presented pre-clinical data from a study on 19 mice – and they all responded positively to the treatment. In the 17-day trial period of the study, the antibody led to the complete elimination of the tumors in 10 of the mice – and to a significant delay in the development of the tumors in the other nine mice.

Aulos was founded in Boston as a spin-off of Biolojic and venture capital firm Apple Tree Partners, which invested $40 million in the company to advance the antibody project and prove its clinical feasibility. Drugs based on antibodies are considered to be one of the greatest hopes for anti-cancer solutions. Among the best-known in the field are Keytruda, mostly used to treat melanomas and lung cancer; and Herceptin for breast cancer. But the antibodies given today to cancer patients are created by a method that also has disadvantages – most are produced by the immune system in mice, and then are replicated to enable mass production.

Source: https://www.haaretz.com/