Gustav Gaudernack (born 1943) is a scientist working in the development of cancer vaccines and cancer immunotherapy. He has developed various strategies in immunological treatment of cancer. He is involved in several ongoing cellular and immuno-gene therapeutic clinical trials and his research group has put major efforts into the development of various T cell-based immunotherapeutic strategies.
Biography
Gaudernack was born in 1943 and grew up in Sandvika, Norway. His father Rolf was a jeweler and gemologist and his mother Lilly was a gemologist. His younger brother, Christian, followed in the footsteps of the family and became a jeweler. Gustav on the other hand, chose a path in bio-medical science and in particular immunology. Gustav married Marit Ohrø-Bjørnvik (later Marit Gaudernack) in 1973. They had two children: Hans (1983) and Herman (1988).
The first footsteps in the field of immunology
Gaudernack received the cand.real (Master of Science) degree in biochemistry at the University of Oslo (UiO) in 1972. He traveled to the University of Tromsø (UiT) as a visiting fellow the same year together with several scientists from the UiO. In the period 1973-1979, Gaudernack was a research fellow supervised by Hans Prydz at the UiT. He got a position as a research fellow in the group of Kristian Hannestad at the Department of Immunology, UiT (1979–1980) and further continued his work in the group of Rolf Seljeli (1980–1983). During this period he went to the University of Minnesota, USA, and worked as a research fellow for one year (1980–1981). His research these years was focused on mouse myeloma protein λ315. He further became interested in the innate immune system, in particular monocytes, and generated monocyte-specific monoclonal antibodies (ID5) in hybridomas. Inspired by his research and without being instructed, Gustav gave lectures in immunology at the UiT. Gaudernack is greatly interested in art and in parallel to his research at UiT he opened a gallery at the university called Galleri 72.
The years at the National Hospital, Oslo
In 1983, Gaudernack headed south to Oslo and worked in the group of Erik Thorsby at the Institute for Transplantation Immunology at the National Hospital. Together with Frode Vartdal, Gaudernack contributed to the development of cell-isolation systems for tissue-typing based on mono-disperse magnetic beads (Dynabeads) developed by John Ugelstad. There was a great need for fast tissue-typing techniques and the work was performed in collaboration with the biotechnology company Dynal which funded the research. He further generated monoclonal antibodies specific for the hematopoietic stem cell marker, CD34. A joint collaboration with Dynal, the Norwegian Radium Hospital and Baxter resulted in development of an instrument to isolate hematopoietic stem cells in large scale using anti-CD34 mAb coupled to Dynabeads.
Cancer vaccines; from idea to clinical trials
Already during his period at the UiT, the idea of cancer vaccines came to Gaudernack's mind. The fact that cancer cell lines injected into mice were killed by the animal's immune system was fascinating in a time with the development of the cancer immunosurveillance theory and cancer immunoediting hypothesis. At the end of the 1980s the three-dimensional structure of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) molecule was defined in parallel to identification of tumor-specific gene aberrations. In light of these discoveries, Gaudernack positioned himself early in the development of peptide vaccines based on genetic aberrations. One such genetic aberration was mutations in the proto-oncogene Ras subfamily. Together with his team, Gustav was among the first in the world to develop peptide-based cancer vaccines derived from mutated Ras proto-oncogenes. The peptides contain the various mutations that are present in the catalytic site of the Ras protein.
Ras peptide vaccines
In 1993, five patients with pancreatic cancer received ras peptide vaccines carrying mutations in codon 12. The five patients carried the corresponding Ras mutation and Ras-specific T cell responses were induced in two of the patients. The study demonstrated that specific T cell responses against mutations uniquely harbored in tumor cells can be induced in cancer patients by vaccination.