India’s First Indigenous Tumour Antigen SPAG9- ASPAGNIITM

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. ASPAGNII^TM is an extraordinary breakthrough and innovation in treating this deadly disease. It is rightly in tune with the Atmanirbhar Bharat spirit. It is an affordable and indigenous product for cancer treatment.

Previously ASPAGNII^TM is used in Dendritic Cell (DC) based immunotherapy in ovarian, cervical cancer and now will be used in treating breast cancer. It can revolutionize cancer treatment in India and the world. 

Background:

The researchers at the New Delhi-based National Institute of Immunology (NII), an Autonomous Institute of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), and the clinicians at Cancer Institute, Adyar, Chennai, have been working together to discover a good treatment for cancer patients.

ASPAGNII^TM:

Indias first indigenous tumor antigen, SPAG9 was discovered, by Dr. Anil Suri (head of the Cancer Research Program at NII) in 1998. Recently, the SPAG9 antigen has received the trademark ASPAGNII^TM.

Statistics:

• Every year Cancer kills 8.51 lakh people in India, as per International Agency for Research on Cancer, 2020, Globocan.
• World Health Organization (WHO) report says 1 in 10 Indians develop cancer in their lifetime, and 1 in 15 will die of cancer.
• By 2040, the number of new cancer cases worldwide per year can rise to 29.5 million and the number of cancer-related deaths to 16.4 million.

In Detail:

Immunotherapy is a new approach that exploits the inner capability of the body to fight against deadly cancer. Based on this approach, either the immune system of the people is given a boost, or the T-cells are trained to identify intractable cancer cells and kill them. Patients with SPAG9 protein get treated with a Dendritic Cell-based vaccine approach. In the Dendritic Cell-based vaccine, the cells called monocytes are collected from the blood of the patient and then modified into what is called dendritic cells. These dendritic cells are primed with ASPAGNII^TMand are injected back into the patient’s body to help the fighter cells, or T-cells, present in the body to kill the cancer cells. Dendritic Cell-based immunotherapy is regarded as safe, affordable and can also promote antitumor immune responses and prolonged survival of cancer patients.