Team Profile

A message from Louis M. Weiner, MD, Director, Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center

Lou's BiKEs Team has a double meaning. A few years ago, Dan Vallera, a colleague from the University of Minnesota, wanted to create a new type of bispecific antibody that targets both cancer cells and human natural killer cells through the activating receptor Fc-gamma R3, also known as CD16. He turned to me because we had developed and clinically tested the very first bispecific antibody targeting both cancer cells and CD16-expressing human natural killer cells. He knew that we also had previously isolated a single-chain Fv antibody fragment that targets CD16, and had used it to create our own bispecific structure known as a trimeric, bispecific antibody that targeted the breast cancer antigen HER2/neu and CD16; we called this structure a TriBi, and had published our results in 2004. Dan and his colleagues used this CD16 construct to create a bispecific killer engager (i.e., a BiKE) and a trispecific variant known as a TRiKE. Both have undergone clinical development. So, I have some experience in exploiting the power of BiKEs to end cancer by engaging the power of the body's immune system to recognize and eliminate cancer cells. While TRiKEs are promising, they are not fast enough to cover 50 or 100 miles in October.

Lou's BiKE Team will build on that symbolism one rider and one mile at a time. Join me!