Vaccine Boosts CAR T Cell Therapy for Solid Tumors
The use of engineered T cells to destroy cancer cells has been successful in treating some types of cancer, such as leukemia and lymphoma. However, adoptive cell therapy using chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells hasn’t worked as well for solid tumors. One reason for this lack of success is that the T cells target only one tumor antigen, and if some of the tumor cells don’t express that antigen, they can escape the T cell attack.
MIT researchers have now found a way to overcome this obstacle, using a vaccine that boosts the response of CAR T cells, and also helps the immune system to generate new T cells that target other tumor antigens.
In studies in mice, the researchers found that this approach made it much more likely that tumors could be eradicated.
In a 2019 study, Irvine and his colleagues enhanced the effectiveness of CAR T cells against glioblastoma by delivering a vaccine to mice shortly after the engineered T cells were administered. This vaccine, which carries the same antigen targeted by the CAR T cells, is taken up by immune cells in the lymph nodes, where the CAR T cells are exposed to it.
In that study the researchers found that the vaccine boost not only helped the engineered CAR T cells attack tumors, but it had another, unexpected effect, in that it helped to generate host T cells that target other tumor antigens.
https://www.genengnews.com/topics/cancer/vaccine-boosts-car-t-cell-therapy-for-solid-tumors/
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