Developing TMEM119 as an attractive immunotherapeutic target in Osteosarcoma

With current treatment options patients with Osteosarcoma have a 5-year survival rate of about 76%, but for 3 out of 4 patients diagnosed with Osteosarcoma that has spread beyond the primary site will not live 5 years passed their diagnosis. There is clearly an unmet clinical need to develop new options for these patients. Immunotherapy aims to notify your body of the malignant cells and target them for destruction by the patient’s own immune system, however, its success in pediatric cancers is still lacking. One crucial aspect of developing successful immunotherapies is having a good target, and these are often targets that sit on the outside surface of the cancer cells. Our team has already characterized this area in Osteosarcoma and found a protein, TMEM119, to be extremely specific to Osteosarcoma. We have demonstrated that TMEM119 is not expressed in normal tissues, only in some sarcomas, making it an ideal strategy to target, but more work is needed. With this project, we aim to understand the role of TMEM119 in Osteosarcoma by selectively switching it off and examining whether this can prevent the spread of Osteosarcoma. We hope that our work can contribute to the development of a new strategy for Osteosarcoma patients.