Metastatic Cancer
Treatment Breakthrough
The Mirror Effect® breakthrough is to convert the toxic GVHD effect into a non-toxic host vs graft (HVG) rejection effect, which in turn converts the GVT effect into an equally powerful host vs. tumor (HVT) effect.
Mirror Biologics has reversed engineered the powerful GVT immune effect of non-myeloablative, allogeneic stem cell (allograft) transplant procedures (“Mini-Transplant”) that is intimately and proportionally coupled to a highly toxic and often lethal GVHD side-effect. The ‘mirror’ of GVHD is a non-toxic rejection of the graft (host vs graft or HVG) which supports a host vs tumor or HvT effect, whereby a patient’s own immune system attacks the tumor. The HVT/HVG effects elicit anti-tumor effects equally as powerful as the GVT/GVHD effects.
The GvT/GvHD effects only occur when a patient is pre-treated with chemotherapy, not to kill the tumor, but to suppress the immune system sufficient to prevent rejection and enable the engraftment of the stem cells from a matched tissue donor. Only when there is engraftment of foreign immune cells (chimeric immune system) does the rejection of the cells cause an anti-tumor effect. Infusion of allogeneic immune cells without prior chemotherapy conditioning does not elicit an anti-tumor effect. The GvHD attack on normal cells, especially endothelial cells of the lining of the gut, causes the release of danger signals. These danger signals are responsible for supporting the GVT effect and breaking down the ability of the tumor to evade or suppress immune attack.
In order to eliminate the need for chemotherapy conditioning and matched tissue donors in the HvG/HvT mirror mechanism, AlloStim® cells are designed to release the same danger signals upon rejection as are released in GvHD.