Scenic’s advisor Ton Schumacher identifies a modifier of the CD47 “don’t eat me” checkpoint

Using the platform technology that is proprietary to Scenic (i.e., Cell-Seq), a team of researchers at the Netherlands Cancer Institute and Leiden University Medical Center have identified the enzyme QPCTL as a critical modifier of the immune checkpoint protein CD47. The team showed that inhibition or deletion of QPCTL disrupts the SIRPα-CD47 interaction and leads to increased phagocytosis of target cells in vitro. Furthermore, interfering with QPCTL expression increases neutrophil-mediated killing of tumor cells in mice. This work highlights QPCTL as a potential target that may overcome some of the shortcomings of anti-CD47 antibodies. The work was published in the prestigious journal Nature Medicine.

CD47 white paper
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