Achilles’ truncal neoantigens

Achilles Therapeutics Ltd. is developing a personalized T cell therapy that uses “truncal” neoantigens expressed in all tumor cells to drive T cells selected from tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs).

Neoantigen discovery is fueling a burst of cancer immunotherapy companies taking advantage of the tumor specificity of the antigens, bolstered by evidence that high neoantigen burden correlates with a positive response to immune therapies and prolonged survival (see “Neo Wave”). Because cancers arise from one mutant founder cell, tumors have a clonal history that generates an evolutionary tree. Truncal (clonal) neoantigens arise in the founder cell at the base of the tree’s “trunk”, whereas other neoantigens occur only in the branches...