IRIC - Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer

Published on January 7, 2025

Thanks to a major grant of nearly $1.5 million from the Quebec government, CQDM and Epitopea are able to fund a high-potential collaborative research project at the heart of the Université de Montréal, directly involving the research teams of Claude Perreault and Pierre Thibault, principal investigators at IRIC. The aim of the project is to develop a new immunotherapy to effectively treat patients with lung and ovarian cancers.

To achieve this, IRIC teams will use CryptoMap™, a platform developed from the work of Claude Perreault and Pierre Thibault, facilitating the creation of RNA-based immunotherapies. The platform identifies non-mutated tumor antigens, named Cryptigens™, that are uniquely expressed by cancer cells present in people with the same type of cancer. As part of the funded project, new sets of Cryptigens™ will be identified from patients of diverse backgrounds, enabling the creation of universal RNA-based cancer vaccines targeting this new class of antigens. Epitopea will further validate this unique approach to stimulating the immune system to recognize and destroy cancer cells more rapidly and effectively.

This highly promising project could, in the not-too-distant future, lead to the development of new RNA-based immunotherapies and move these innovations towards clinical trials.