Antibodies blocking the PVRIG/PVLRL2 interaction now in pre-clinical development
Leading predictive drug discovery company Compugen presented exciting results from their immune checkpoint program at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) conference in National Harbor, MD. The presentation focused on the in silico discovery of PVRIG, its functional characterisation as a novel immune checkpoint, the identification– using the Retrogenix technology – of PVRL2 as a PVRIG binding partner and the subsequent investigation of a novel immunotherapy strategy via antibody blockade.
Identifying immune checkpoint receptors using the Retrogenix technology
Following Compugen’s identification and confirmation of PVRIG as a novel immune checkpoint on T cells, the Retrogenix cell microarray technology was used to screen for human cell surface binding partners. Scientists at Retrogenix were blinded to the identity of the test ligand and had no knowledge of any putative receptor targets prior to the study.