Researchers enhance CAR-T cells to target solid tumors

May 8 2024Albert Einstein College of Medicine Researchers at the National Cancer Institute-designated Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center have shown that a breakthrough therapy for treating blood cancers can be adapted to treat solid tumors-;an advance that could transform cancer treatment. The promising findings, reported today in Science Advances, involve CAR-T cell therapy, which supercharges the immune system to identify and attack cancer cells.

CAR-T cell therapy, short for chimeric antigen receptor -T cell therapy, is a marvel of genetic engineering that transforms T cells into cancer-seeking missiles programmed to attack on contact. The therapy involves extracting the patient's own T cells and equipping them with a single gene that codes for several different proteins. The genetically modified T cells are allowed to multiply and are then infused back into the patient.

Five CAR-Ts confront three types of cancer All five CAR-T therapies developed by the Zang team used the same novel targeting protein: a monoclonal antibody that binds to B7-H3, a cancer-cell antigen widely expressed on most solid tumors and their blood vessels. Dr. Zang had previously helped to discover that B7-H3 allows tumors to evade immune attack by interfering with T cells.

"Factors such as low-oxygen levels and immune checkpoints inside solid tumors make for a hostile microenvironment that can strongly suppress immune attack by T cells-;which also have trouble penetrating solid tumors' dense connective tissue network," Dr. Zang said. "It seemed possible that using TMIGD2 as a costimulatory protein could give CAR-T cells the activation boost they need to reach cancer cells and persist within solid tumors.

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