According to Macmillan Cancer Support, it is estimated that more than three million people living in the UK are affected by cancer.
Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have found in a study that CAR-Enhancer (CAR-E) therapy may help patients overcome recurrence of their cancer.
The published findings showed that Nature BiotechnologyThe researchers report a technique to prevent recurrence and hope to begin the first trials in the near future.
According to Macmillan Cancer Support, it is estimated that more than three million people in the UK are living with cancer, with breast cancer being the most common, with more than 55,000 new cases each year.
A common challenge faced when using CAR T-cell therapy is that many patients, even those whose cancer goes into complete remission, eventually relapse.
To address this issue, the new technology creates what researchers consider to be the CAR-E therapeutic platform, allowing CAR T cells to form a memory of the cancer cells and become reactivated when the cancer recurs.
The researchers developed an entirely new therapeutic agent that consists of a weakened form of the immune signaling molecule interleukin-2 (IL-2) fused to an antigen that the CAR is designed to bind.
The researchers tested CAR-E therapy in laboratory cultures of myeloma cells and in animal models of the disease and found that it resulted in the complete elimination of tumor cells.
Furthermore, the researchers found that the long-term CAR T cells generated by this therapy could be restimulated by re-administration of CAR-E, suggesting that patients who relapse after CAR T-cell therapy may be effectively treated with additional doses of CAR-E treatment.
Furthermore, CAR-E highlights the possibility of treating patients with fewer CAR T cells than currently available, without the CAR T cell expansion process, as a less time-consuming alternative.
“What’s most exciting about this treatment is how easily it can be integrated into the treatment of patients receiving CAR T-cell therapy,” said Taha Rakshanderoo, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher at Dana-Farber.
“This is a very elegant solution to the problem of CAR-T cell exhaustion, and we look forward to starting to test this in clinical trials.”
