Al's Comment:

This is an interesting new approach that is now making the important jump from laboratory studies into its **first human trial**.

 

Adaptin Bio has opened enrollment at Duke University for a Phase I trial of **APTN-101**, a treatment designed for glioblastomas that express **EGFRvIII**. APTN-101 is what the company calls a Brain Bispecific T-cell Engager, or **BRiTE**. The idea is to use manipulated T cells not only to attack the tumor, but also to help carry the therapeutic agent across the blood-brain barrier and directly to glioblastoma cells.

 

I find this particularly interesting because it tries to address two major problems in glioblastoma at the same time: **getting an effective treatment into the brain and directing the immune system specifically against the tumor.** The treatment targets EGFRvIII, a tumor-specific alteration found in a subset of glioblastomas, which theoretically provides a way to attack tumor cells while sparing normal cells.

 

Preclinical studies reportedly showed activity against patient-derived glioma cells and encouraging results in animal models, but we have to remember that many GBM treatments that look impressive in the laboratory ultimately fail in patients. This Phase I study is primarily designed to determine **safety and the appropriate dose**, not to prove that the treatment extends survival. It plans to enroll up to 15 adults with EGFRvIII-positive malignant glioma.

 

Still, this is exactly the type of trial I like to see: a scientifically interesting idea has moved beyond the laboratory and is finally being tested in patients. **Now we get to find out whether the concept actually works in the human brain.**

 

Enrollment opens for Adaptin Bio’s Phase I trial of glioblastoma therapy