Cue Biopharma Announces Nature Methods Publication of Preclinical Data Showing Tumor Penetration and Antigen-Specific T Cell Engagement with Immuno-STAT Based Protein Scaffolds

Novel positron emission tomography approach demonstrates the ability of Immuno-STAT based scaffolds to selectively engage tissue-resident T cells including intratumoral T cells of defined specificity

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cue Biopharma, Inc. (NASDAQ: CUE), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company engineering a novel class of injectable biologics to selectively engage and modulate targeted T cells within the body, announced today the peer-reviewed publication of preclinical data focused on the in vivo detection of tumor antigen-specific T cells in a paper published in Nature Methods titled, “In vivo detection of antigen-specific CD8 T cells by immuno-positron emission tomography.” The study was co-authored by Steven C. Almo, Ph.D., co-founder of Cue Biopharma, professor and chair of biochemistry, professor of physiology & biophysics and the Wollowick Family Foundation chair in multiple sclerosis and immunology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Hidde Ploegh, Ph.D., a renowned expert in molecular immunology and a member of the program in cellular and molecular medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital.

In this work, researchers employed dimeric protein scaffolds to develop a novel immuno-positron emission tomography (immunoPET) imaging approach. These protein scaffolds, known as synTacs, consist of Fc-based covalent peptide-major histocompatibility complex (pMHC) dimers, which form the core structure of Cue Biopharma’s Immuno-STAT (Selective Targeting and Alteration of T cells) platform. By targeting synTacs labelled with positron emitting isotopes against specified tumor antigens, researchers were able to specifically and non-invasively detect tumor antigen-specific T cells in murine solid tumor models. In the same study, similar application of synTacs deploying viral antigens could detect and engage virus-specific T cells in the lung tissue.

“These studies demonstrate the remarkable breadth of applications supported by the Immuno-STAT platform, as it enables clinical applications for highly selective targeted treatments of cancer, autoimmune diseases and infectious diseases, but, also as demonstrated in the Nature Methods paper, the potential to serve as prognostics and diagnostics for mechanism-of-action and treatment efficacy by revealing the in vivo distribution of the biologic and its target T cells in diseased tissue,” said Dr. Almo.