Scripps Research is the top nonprofit scientific institute in the US for producing high-quality research based on discoveries published in leading scientific journals, having discovered ten new drugs approved benefiting millions of people worldwide.

Howard C. Hang, Ph.D., a world-renowned scientist in the area of microbial immunotherapy, will lead a joint research collaboration. He has published a number of papers in journals such as Science, Science Immunology, eLife and Nature Chemical Biology in this area of research. In particular, he is broadly interested in the molecular mechanisms related to the modulations of immunity by chemical signals derived from specific metabolites or microbiota.

With this collaboration, LISCure and Scripps Research scientists will jointly discover novel mechanisms of LB-P2D involved in its multifaceted antitumor immune signals and research on the combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors.

LB-P2D, a nonpathogenic bacteria-based immune-oncology candidate, has shown promising antitumor efficacy in various tumor-bearing animal models. It achieved complete remission in all treatment group subjects at an effective dose, showed robust tumor suppression in recurrent and metastatic tumor models, and confirmed its dose-dependency.   

"The antitumor efficacies of LB-P2D have been verified in various tumor-bearing animal models. We are excited to collaborate with Scripps Research to find the unique characteristics of LB-P2D by discovering differentiated mechanisms of LB-P2D," said LISCure immuno-oncology research team.   

"LISCure has discovered and cultivated a remarkable collection of bacterial species/strains with fascinating therapeutic properties. Given our experience with microbiota mechanisms of action, we are pleased to collaborate with LISCure to dissect and understand the physiological pathways that are modulated by LB-P2D and other uniquely active bacteria," said Hang.

LISCure plans to enter the first-in-human study in the US for LB-P2D in 2H 2022.