The Company’s scientific team describes how they successfully disguised cancer cells and tricked immune cells into attacking them and reveals the next phase of their development plan
| Source: CancerVAX, Inc
Lehi, Aug. 19, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Lehi, Utah, August 19, 2025 – CancerVax, Inc., the developer of a breakthrough universal cancer treatment platform designed to use the body’s immune system to treat cancer, today announced the release of a video presentation featuring its scientific team discussing the recent breakthrough.
The video presentation can be viewed at the CancerVax website https://www.cancervax.com/ or at (https://vimeo.com/1110085683/9986ef9a2a).
Highlights of the discussion include:
Dr. George Katibah, CancerVax Chief Scientific Officer stated, “Simply put, we’ve accomplished what we’ve long pursued here, which is to show that we can disguise cancer cells to appear as common infectious agents like measles or the COVID-19 coronavirus and allow the immune system to detect and destroy these cancer cells. This validates our major foundational hypothesis.”
When asked about the broader scientific perspective, Dr. Sumant Ramachandra, CancerVax Chief Scientific Advisor said, “Our approach is not just innovative but the beauty of this is it is paradigm shifting. I must give a lot of credit to the scientific team because they’ve taken a hypothesis and rigorously tested it and shown it in the laboratory setting to bear out to be true. In any scientific endeavor you want to break down the problem into steps and I think this team has shown that in these steps we are hitting exactly the hypothesis. We’re now putting it into practicality, and I look forward to working with the team on those next steps and then holistically on the program itself.”
Dr. Adam Grant, CancerVax Principal Scientist added, “When we started, we first had to identify what viruses we wanted to use to trick the immune cells into killing the cancer cells. George and I undertook a substantial research effort to determine not just the virus, but also which proteins we should use to elicit the pre-existing immunity against these viruses. We narrowed it down to measles and SARS-CoV-2.
“We are using mRNA technology,” Dr. Grant continued. “So, we delivered our mRNA payload to the cancer cells and made them express these viral proteins which we co-cultured with immune cells derived from an actual patient. We removed some immune cells from the blood, placed them into the cancer cells and observed what they did in the presence or the absence of our mRNA payloads.”
Dr. Ramachandra added, “Adam’s work is really based on the power of computational biology, big data, and using machine learning and artificial intelligence to identify the proper immune system flags to recognize in these big data sets. So, we’re leveraging the wealth of publicly available data and understanding what is out there about these different pathogens to identify the right ones with the right properties to stimulate an immune response. We really can short circuit a lot of the iterative testing that would have been previously necessary and the stops and starts by using these data sets. We can mine very efficiently using advanced computational techniques to identify and set up an optimal immune response for patients. It’s really exciting to see the combination of big data and computational techniques aligning with the efficiencies of biology testing allowing us to move forward very efficiently and quickly.”
Dr. Katibah concluded, “There are a lot of steps coming up in this process, which is highly regulated by the FDA. But we know what we need to accomplish in these next steps, which will really set the stage for the development of our platform. The pieces of our platform are well understood and have known profiles. By combining these known pieces with the deep experience of Sumant and myself on preparing drug applications or filings and Sumant’s extensive experience on the clinical development side, we’re well positioned to move efficiently through the upcoming animal studies.
To learn more about the CancerVax platform, please watch the Short Explainer Video at https://cancervax.com/explainer
About CancerVax
CancerVax is a pre-clinical biotech company developing a novel Universal Cancer Treatment platform that will be customizable, as an injection, to treat many types of cancer. Our innovative approach DETECTS, MARKS, and KILLS only cancer cells. By making cancer cells look like well-immunized common diseases, such as measles or chickenpox, we intend to use the body’s natural immune system to easily kill the cancer cells. We look forward to the day when treating cancer will be as simple as getting a shot — a better way to fight cancer. To learn more, please visit www.CancerVax.com
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release may contain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. Instead, they are based only on our current beliefs, expectations, and assumptions regarding the future of our business, plans and strategies, projections, anticipated events and trends, the economy, and other future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks, and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict, many of which are outside our control. Our actual results and financial condition may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Therefore, you should not rely on any of these forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statement made by us in this release is based only on information currently available to us and speaks only as of the date it is made. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise.
Press Contact:
CancerVax, Inc.
Tel: (805) 356-1810
communications@CancerVax.com
