PHILADELPHIA, June 24, 2026
Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have developed a novel nanoparticle platform called VLP-Open HLA that enhances adaptive immune responses by activating and expanding cancer-targeting CD8+ T cells. Published in Science Advances, the technology mimics the surface of diseased cells, allowing scientists to rapidly evaluate multiple cancer-associated protein fragments that stimulate immune responses. The platform is designed to overcome limitations of current T cell screening methods, which are often slow, labor-intensive, and difficult to scale.
Platform Accelerates Identification of Effective Cancer Targets
The VLP-Open HLA platform presents cancer-related protein fragments on virus-like nanoparticles that imitate diseased cell surfaces. Unlike conventional systems, researchers can quickly replace the displayed protein fragments, enabling high-throughput screening of numerous cancer targets simultaneously. Laboratory studies and experiments using human blood samples demonstrated that the nanoparticles successfully activated antigen-specific CD8+ T cells without requiring the lengthy expansion of specialized immune cells typically needed for existing approaches.
Potential Foundation for Personalized Cancer Vaccines
According to Nikolaos G. Sgourakis, PhD, Professor at CHOP’s Center for Computational and Genomic Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania, the platform functions across multiple human leukocyte antigen (HLA) variants found in different individuals and can be configured to carry several immune signals simultaneously. This flexibility could enable the development of personalized cancer vaccines and T cell therapies tailored to each patient’s tumor profile while improving the precision of targeted immunotherapies.
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Research Supports Future Precision Immunotherapy Development
Researchers further optimized the platform to promote antigen-specific T cell activation and expansion, providing a potential foundation for next-generation cancer immunotherapies. Supported by multiple grants from Cancer Grand Challenges, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institutes of Health, and The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research, the study represents an important step toward faster identification of effective immune targets and more personalized treatment strategies for cancer patients.
Source: Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia press release
