The partners in the international CAR T-REX consortium announce the award of a highly competitive EIC Pathfinder Open grant, following the positive evaluation of their project entitled “CAR T Cells Rewired to Prevent EXhaustion in the Tumor Microenvironment”. One of 57 projects selected from 858 submissions, with total funding of €2.7m, CAR T-REX was recognized for its radical and ambitious vision to improve the efficacy and safety of CAR T-based cell therapies targeted at solid tumors. Combining innovative methods of genome editing and non-viral gene delivery, CAR T-REX will explore the engineering of transcriptional networks in CAR T cells, to selectively circumvent T cell depletion upon activation in the tumor microenvironment (TME). CAR T-REX aims to construct novel self-regulating genetic circuits controlled by microRNAs in immune cells, use a novel high-performance non-viral gene delivery platform to deliver synthetic miRNA constructs, select and compare the best-performing construct(s) in preclinical settings, and execute GMP-like manufacturing cycles for the final CAR T product. The CAR T-REX consortium brings together a multidisciplinary group of internationally recognized experts and companies from across Europe.
