A group of researchers in the United States has developed an innovative method to produce stronger immune cells, able to be stored and used in the future in cell therapies to fight difficult forms of cancer.
Specialists from UCLA in the United States have found a new method to create gamma delta T immune cells that are more effective in fighting severe forms of cancer.
This new approach may facilitate access to cell therapies such as chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (CAR-T) for more patients, thus removing one of the main barriers to obtaining life-saving treatments .
“It is often crucial to act quickly in treating people with advanced cancers,” said Lili Yang, associate professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Currently, cell therapies require tailoring to each individual patient, involving extracting white blood cells from a patient’s blood, genetically modifying them, and reintroducing them into the body.
This procedure can take weeks or months and can have high costs, reaching hundreds of thousands of euros for each patient treated.
The new method, described in an article published in the journal Nature Communications, represents a significant advance towards the development of more effective, lower-cost and shorter-waiting cell therapies that can be produced in large quantities and sent to hospitals in around the world, thus making CAR-T cell therapy more accessible to a greater number of patients.
The research team focused on gamma delta T cells, recognized for their ability to target a wide variety of cancers, including solid tumors, without causing complications such as graft-versus-host disease, which is a common problem with allogeneic cell therapies .
This cell approach has previously been studied, but has encountered clinical limitations due to donor variability, short duration of action, and the ability of cancer cells to evade the body’s immune system response.
The team found that gamma delta T cells from donors with high expressions of the surface marker CD16 showed an increased ability to kill cancer cells.
“These gamma delta T cells with increased CD16 content have unique characteristics that enhance their ability to recognize tumors,” said Yang, lead author of the study.
By using the CD16 biomarker for donor selection, the researchers demonstrated improved anticancer properties of these cells.
The team also overcame some of the problems seen in previous studies of gamma delta T-cell treatments by genetically modifying them to be equipped with CAR and IL-15, two components essential to improving the cancer-fighting capabilities of these cells.
The researchers were able to produce these modified cells efficiently and in large quantities, which they tested on two models of ovarian cancer.
The results showed that these cells were able to destroy tumors and remain active in the body for an extended period, allowing them to continue their beneficial effects against cancer.
Also, complications such as graft-host disease were not observed. According to the authors, these results underscore the feasibility, therapeutic potential, and remarkable safety profile of these CD16-enhanced gamma delta T cells.
“We hope that these findings will represent a viable therapeutic option for cancer treatment in the future,” added Yang.
Source: 360medical.ro
More news on republikanews.ro.
You can find us on the RepublikaNews Facebook page.
2023-11-17 11:49:23
#Researchers #developed #immunotherapeutic #cells #cancer #republikaNEWS
