Effect of Anthracycline and anti-PD-1 Antibody Combination Therapy on Murine Carcinoma

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for over 500,000 deaths per year. Doxorubicin (DOX) is one of the main chemotherapeutic drugs used to treat many forms of cancer, but its inherent cardiotoxicity can have devastating side-effects. GPX-150 and GPX-160 are DOX analogs that are similar to their widely used counterpart, but with a structure known to be much less cardiotoxic. In vitro data testing these analogs against a variety of cancer cell lines has shown promising results, with GPX 160 proving to be as cytotoxic as Doxorubicin. We are currently testing the ability of these drugs to block growth of CT-26 colon carcinoma tumors in Balb/c mice when given alone or in combination with an anti-PD-1 antibody therapeutic. In this way, we hope to show the synergistic effects of using chemotherapy and immunotherapy in the same treatment. By comparing tumor volumes and overall health between treatment groups over a 56 day trial, valuable information will be obtained on the efficacy of these chemotherapeutic drugs, and there synergistic implications with anti-PD-1 antibodies