# A Novel Symbiotic Approach for Ovarian Cancer

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS · 2022 · $379,248

## Abstract

The overall cancer death rates are down ~20% in past 25 years, however they remained unchanged for late
stage ovarian cancer (OvCa) patients, making it the deadliest gynecological disease. Cancer immunotherapy
makes use of antibody-based approaches to activate immune cells against the cancer cells and have proven
effective in blood cancers and melanomas. Despite short-term positive responses, most OvCa specific
antibodies have largely failed in clinical trials. This is attributed to limited infiltration of activated immune
effector cells into the solid tumor bed. Therefore, it is highly important to generate efficacious therapies that
have inbuilt capacity to turn OvCa against itself by exploiting inherent cancer properties. The proposed studies
aim to investigate a novel and rationally combined dual-specificity antibody-based approach (called BaCa) that
makes use of OvCa enriched surface antigen (FOLR1) and cancer inducible cell-death activator (DR5 or
TRAIL-R2). Therapeutic antibodies individually against FOLR1 and DR5 have failed in clinical trials due to lack
of efficacy. The BaCa approach combines these two targets in a single agent antibody with combined strength
in the activity and selectivity. FOLR1 acts as an anchor to selectivity recruit, retain, and maintain anti-DR5
affinity in the ovarian tumor microenvironment. This results into a high level of DR5 receptor clustering,
signaling and activation. As a consequence a highly superior cell death and cytotoxicity is instigated against
ovarian tumors. We have already tested the feasibility of BaCa strategy in both ex vivo and in vivo OvCa
models. Current application supported with comprehensive preliminary data aims to test the unique ability of
BaCa strategy to engage host immune response for long-term immunogenicity against OvCa. If proved
accurate and successful in vivo, this path has the inherent “moon-shot” potential to selectively eliminate
HGSOC cells, in a similar or improved fashion over FDA approved dual-specificity antibody called
blinatumomab. Unlike chemotherapy, proposed biological therapy is safe and will significantly change the
landscape of disease progression free survival of OvCa patients. Finally, this strategy has a great potential to
be applicable for other solid cancer targeting.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10407043
- **Project number:** 5R01CA233752-05
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS
- **Principal Investigator:** Jogender Tushir-Singh
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $379,248
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-06-01 → 2024-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10407043

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10407043, A Novel Symbiotic Approach for Ovarian Cancer (5R01CA233752-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10407043. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*