# T Cell Immunity Of COVID19: Developing Biomarker And Therapeutic Strategies

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF TX MD ANDERSON CAN CTR · 2020 · $149,511

## Abstract

Abstract
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) in its advanced stages, is refractory to conventional therapy, with a
median patient survival rate of 6-7 months and 1-year survival rate of 10-15%. Adoptively transfer of antigen-
specific T cells represents a potentially effective strategy in combination with immune checkpoint blockade. In
this proposal we address two major challenges to advancing the use of adoptive cellular therapy (ACT) for
pancreatic cancers: 1. a paucity of proven immunogenic targets for pancreatic cancer and, 2. a means of rapidly
deploying antigen-specific cellular therapy targeting such antigens. Our scientific premise is that strategies that
address the lack of tumor-reactive T cells in pancreatic cancer, where the mutational burden and immunogenicity
is significantly lower, would be desirable and achievable by the adoptive transfer of tumor-reactive T cells
recognizing pancreatic cancer-associated antigens.
To address the challenge of identifying immunogenic targets for pancreatic cancer, we implemented an epitope
discovery workflow to analyze peptides eluted from tumor MHC by LC-tandem mass spectrometry. In the
course of performing these studies, we cross-indexed predicted epitopes against the virus Uni-Prot database to
identify potential tumor-associated epitopes representing human endogenous viral sequences, and discovered
that segments of the SARS-CoV2 viral genome are processed and presented by tumor MHC. Analysis of the
genomic sequences of K562 revealed that several regions of the of the SARS-CoV2 gene are present in intron
sequences and we propose in this supplement to interrogate additional tumor genomic and RNA sequencing
databases to identify additional epitopes associated with SARS-CoV2 and other viruses to determine 1) their
immunogenicity (ability to elicit high affinity virus- and tumor-specific T cells) 2) prevalence among tumor
types. We believe this to be an unprecedented source of immunogenic epitopes that can be used to develop
predictive/ prognostic algorithms (TCR clustering) and for therapeutic intervention (antigen-specific adoptive T
cell therapy and vaccination) for malignancies as well as for the treatment of SARS-CoV2 and other coronoviral
diseases. This supplement proposes to identify these novel epitopes in alignment with the objective proposed in
Aim 3 of the original R01 application.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10152886
- **Project number:** 3R01CA237672-02S1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF TX MD ANDERSON CAN CTR
- **Principal Investigator:** Cassian Yee
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $149,511
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2019-08-01 → 2024-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10152886

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10152886, T Cell Immunity Of COVID19: Developing Biomarker And Therapeutic Strategies (3R01CA237672-02S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10152886. Licensed CC0.

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