MusiQ Bio, a biotechnology company spun out of UT Southwestern Medical Center, has received a $2.59 million grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas to advance an ultrasound-based cancer immunotherapy platform.
The funding will support development of Microbubble-assisted Ultrasound-guided Immunotherapy of Cancer, or MUSIC.
MusiQ Bio is seeking to generate the preclinical evidence needed to move MUSIC toward first-in-human clinical trials.
The company was created around technology developed at UT Southwestern by researchers including Jacques Lux, Sina Khorsandi and their collaborators.
MUSIC uses microbubbles as targeted delivery vehicles for cGAMP, a molecule that activates the STING pathway and stimulates innate immune responses, including cancer-fighting T cells.
The microbubbles contain inert gas surrounded by biocompatible shells and have historically been used as ultrasound contrast agents.
Researchers attached cGAMP and antibodies targeting antigen-presenting cells to the microbubble surfaces.
When exposed to ultrasound, the bubbles oscillate and collapse, creating mechanical forces that can increase cellular permeability and deliver cGAMP into targeted immune cells.
The approach is designed to concentrate immune activation at specific locations while reducing problems associated with delivering cGAMP systemically.
In 2022, the Lux Lab reported in Nature Nanotechnology that MUSIC significantly reduced tumor growth in mouse models of triple-negative breast cancer and eliminated tumors in 60% of the treated animals.
The treatment also prevented tumor regrowth, reduced systemic progression in a metastatic breast cancer model and enhanced the effects of an immune checkpoint inhibitor.
Researchers have since reported additional results in melanoma models and are studying the technology in pancreatic cancer and glioblastoma.
The team is also developing SONATA, or Systematic Oncotherapy using Nanobubbles for Acoustically-guided Tumor Activation.
SONATA uses bubbles approximately one-tenth the size of those used in MUSIC, allowing them to penetrate tumor tissue more deeply.
The CPRIT funding will allow MusiQ Bio and UT Southwestern’s Lux Lab to continue developing the platforms across additional cancers and prepare the technology for potential human studies.
KEY QUOTES:
“This funding has the potential to bring a platform known as Microbubble-assisted Ultrasound-guided Immunotherapy of Cancer (MUSIC) to first-in-human clinical trials within five years.”
Sina Khorsandi, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of MusiQ Bio
“Other ways to deliver cGAMP are problematic. They don’t have the layer of targeting and control we have, which is required for cGAMP efficacy. We believe our platform could offer important advantages.”
Jacques Lux, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering at UT Southwestern and Co-Founder of MusiQ Bio
