The startup is leveraging the biomaterial-based technology to develop novel therapies able to program anti-cancer immunity and prevent infectious diseases
By Benjamin Boettner
(BOSTON) — Today, the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Attivare Therapeutics Inc. announced that Attivare has licensed a portfolio of immune-modulating biomaterial technologies from Harvard University that was created at the Wyss Institute, John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Massachusetts General Hospital. This technology creates an in vivo training ground for the immune system, enabling it to more effectively fight cancer or prevent infection by pathogens. The license was enabled by Harvard’s Office of Technology Development (OTD) and provides Attivare with the worldwide rights to the portfolio of technologies.
Attivare’s goal is to advance the treatment of diseases with high unmet needs through the development of novel immunostructure-based therapeutics using its AttImmuneTM platform. The platform enables the modular creation of disease-specific immunotherapies able to effectively recruit and reprogram target immune cells in the body of patients through utilizing immune-modulating biomaterial technology invented by the group of David Mooney, Ph.D., Wyss Founding Core Faculty member. Mooney is also the Robert P. Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering at SEAS. The team at Attivare, which formed at the Wyss Institute in 2021 and since established company operations in Natick, Mass., is first focusing on solid tumors and heme malignancies that cannot be effectively treated with immunotherapies yet.
“We are excited to leverage the unique immune-stimulatory properties of the AttImmuneTM technology to reverse tumor-induced immunosuppression and reprogram anti-cancer immunity,” said Robert Pierce, M.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Attivare. “We hope to leverage the modular and multivalent nature of the AttImmuneTM platform to bring the benefit of a strong anti-cancer immune response to those patients who are refractory to current immuno-oncology therapies.”
We hope to leverage the modular and multivalent nature of the AttImmuneTM platform to bring the benefit of a strong anti-cancer immune response to those patients who are refractory to current immuno-oncology therapies.
The immune-modulating biomaterial technology is the result of a large body of work performed by Mooney’s academic and translational teams at the Wyss Institute and SEAS. Working with clinical immuno-oncologists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, they had advanced biomaterial scaffolds as a new cancer vaccine strategy to activate patients’ immune systems against tumor cells.
The technology licensed to Attivare enables the creation of a 3D scaffold consisting of mesoporous silica rods (MSR) that form a porous cell-permeable structure following their subcutaneous or intratumoral injection through a standard gauge needle. MSRs can be loaded with immune cell-recruiting and activating molecules that are delivered into the scaffold’s surrounding environment or retained within the scaffold to be locally presented to immune cells. Among those, released cytokine and/or chemokine molecules attract key immune cell types known as antigen-presenting cells, which can then be reprogrammed within the scaffold against specific disease targets using a combination of scaffold-localized antigens and/or immune agonists. Following their activation, the antigen-presenting cells migrate to nearby lymph nodes where they orchestrate a broad T-cell response directed at the targeted cells.
“After developing and shepherding the MSR-based immune-modulating biomaterial technology through an extensive pre-clinical validation process and demonstrating its potential in various in vitro and in vivo studies, it is primed for clinical development,” said Mooney, who leads the Wyss Institute’s Immuno-Materials platform. “Attivare’s expert team is well versed in all aspects of the technology and commercial development, and it will be exciting to see how they advance this novel technology towards patients.”
After developing and shepherding the MSR-based immune-modulating biomaterial technology through an extensive pre-clinical validation process and demonstrating its potential in various in vitro and in vivo studies, it is primed for clinical development.
Mooney is also one of Attivare’s co-founders, along with Attivare CTO Ed Doherty, formerly a Lead Senior Staff Scientist at the Wyss Institute, COO Jessica McDonough, Ph.D., formerly Business Development Director of Entrepreneurship at the Wyss Institute, Associate Director Fernanda Langellotto, Ph.D., a former Staff Scientist at the Wyss Institute, Scientist Benjamin Seiler, formerly a Staff Scientist at the Wyss Institute, and former Wyss Research Associate Chyenne Yeager.
The technology platform’s utility also extends to infectious diseases. In one of its proof-of-concept studies, the Attivare team, while at the Wyss Institute, collaborated with other Wyss researchers, led by Lead Senior Staff Scientist Michael Super, Ph.D. and Wyss Founding Director Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., to develop a new vaccination strategy against sepsis-causing infectious pathogens.
“Launching and potentiating immune responses against cancer cells and pathogens using novel immunomaterials is a relatively new concept that has been significantly advanced by the work in Dave Mooney’s group at the Wyss and SEAS. Bringing this technology to patients who need it the most is a hallmark of the Wyss Institute, and the launch of Attivare is a vital step in that process,” said Ingber, who is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, and the Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.