Researchers at the Medical University of Vienna have identified “exhausted” T cells in lymphoma patients as a potent biomarker that can be used to predict the success of CAR-T cell therapy in patients. In recent years, CAR-T cell therapy has been approved for lymphoma patients. CAR-T cells are lymphocytes taken from…

Researchers at Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), in Germany have successfully cured several patients suffering from severe systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) using genetically modified immune cells known as CAR-T cells. CAR T cells are immune cells taken from an individual patient and genetically engineered to express proteins known as CAR—chimeric antigen receptors—on…

A prototype chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T cell) therapy for glioblastoma that specifically targets cancer stem cells (CSCs) expressing the CD133 marker, when tested in mice bearing human glioblastoma tumors, resulted in reduced tumor burden and improved survival according to researchers at McMaster University and the University of Toronto…

A research study led by the University of Kansas suggests that the FDA-mandated monitoring period of diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients receiving chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy could be halved without harm to patients. Writing in the journal Blood Advances, first author Nausheen Ahmed, a researcher and hematologist…

A phase I clinical trial at Stanford Medicine has found that a new CAR-T cell therapy that targets a different protein—CD22—from the original therapy significantly improved patients’ outcomes. Over half of 38 people enrolled in the trial—37 of whom had already relapsed from the original CAR-T therapy—experienced a complete response…

Researchers at the University College London (UCL) and UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health have developed a novel immunotherapeutic platform technology that uses engineered T cells to attack bone cancer cells and activate other cancer-fighting immune cells to do the same.  The researchers aimed to overcome different challenges…

A team of researchers at the Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center (MECCC) have demonstrated that altering two of the four key proteins in chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) improved their ability to attack and shrink glioblastoma, pancreatic, and lung tumors in mouse models of these cancers. The new approach, reported in…

Researchers at City of Hope report the first-ever chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell treatment of recurrent brain tumors delivered directly to the tumor, bypassing the protective blood-brain barrier. The study marks the completion of the largest Phase I clinical trial to date for any solid tumor type. “We’re going after…

A new study uncovers why natural killer (NK) cells stop actively attacking tumor cells once they infiltrate cancers and possibly offers a way to boost their activity. The researchers, from the University of Birmingham and the University of Cambridge, found evidence of why NK cells adopt a dormant state when…

Researchers from Northwestern University and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), reporting Wednesday in the journal Nature, say they have developed a new technique to encode human T cells with a mutation found in malignant T cells that cause lymphoma. The investigators say this new immunotherapy approach is 100…

Researchers from the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine have shown that providing a pretreatment for cancer patients can reduce the rate of cytokine release syndrome (CRS) associated with immunotherapy treatments. The findings, published today in the journal Blood Cancer Discovery, promise to make…

In what could be a big step forward for immunotherapy, ”unprecedented NK [natural killer] cell-engaging Nanodrones” that can selectively target specific cancer cells have been developed, by researchers at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST). This approach, the researchers suggest, could be used to address types of cancers…

AstraZeneca is acquiring cell therapy developer Gracell Biotechnologies Inc. for $1.2B. Gracell is focused on cancer and autoimmune diseases and, importantly, has a toehold in China. The biotech has ten programs in preclinical or later phases. Its most advanced candidate, GC012F, is in Phase I/II trials in the U.S. and…

UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers have identified an epitope on CD95 that, when activated, causes cancer cells to die. The discovery of this new ability to trigger programmed cell death (apoptosis), published in the Nature journal Cell Death & Differentiation, opens a new avenue of research that could improve…

A team of researchers from the Universities of Geneva (UNIGE), Lausanne (UNIL), the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) and the Vaud University Hospital (CHUV) in Switzerland have discovered how to prolong the functionality of CAR-T cells by inhibiting a specific metabolic mechanism. CAR-T cell immunotherapy, which involves taking immune cells from…