Cadherin-6 in Focus: Existing Antibodies, Emerging Applications

Announcer:
You’re listening to Living Rheum on ReachMD. On this episode, Dr. Gary Firestein will discuss cadherin 6 as a potential therapeutic target in rheumatoid arthritis. He’s a Distinguished Professor of Medicine and the Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences at UC San Diego. Let’s hear from Dr. Firestein now.

Dr. Firestein:
The clinical implications of cadherin-6 function are not immediately apparent. In other words, this is not something that’s going to change clinical practice in the next six months or so. But what it does identify is a potential therapeutic target that is what’s called actionable. In other words, it is expressed on the surface of cells; you can generate and people have generated antibodies against it; and it is then possible to go relatively quickly from a discovery to understanding the biology to developing a potential therapeutic, like an antibody, and then potentially testing it in people.

Cadherin-6, it turns out, already has some fairly well-established antibodies that have been produced for it. Most of these are directed towards the kidney, ureter, and bladder, but what makes that particularly interesting is that those are overexpressed not just in those tissues, but also in tumors that occur in those tissues. So there already have been efforts to develop therapeutics to target cadherin-6 for cancer, and those are in clinical trials right now.

The question then is, can we start to repurpose or reorient some of that research towards other diseases where cadherin-6 may also play a role? And so, whereas it might take five or eight years to develop a therapeutic, the trail has already been blazed for testing it in people. And the question is, can this be repurposed for other diseases?

Announcer:
That was Dr. Gary Firestein discussing potential clinical applications of cadherin-6 in rheumatoid arthritis. To access this and other episodes in our series, visit Living Rheum on ReachMD.com, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening!