New immunotherapy targets leukemia at its root
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is one of the most aggressive blood cancers, with poor response to chemotherapy or CAR-T cell therapy. This is notably due to a self-sustaining signaling loop that allows leukemia stem cells to grow and evade treatment. A study published in Nature Communications has just outlined a groundbreaking bispecific antibody that disrupts this mechanism. The […]
Yale researchers triple precision and efficiency in genome editing
Conventional gene-editing technologies, such as CRISPR Cas9, have been limited by the generation of DNA double-strand breaks, which introduce unwanted modifications into the genome. While the development of base editors has enabled the direct chemical modification of target DNA nucleotides, allowing researchers to avoid double-strand breaks, base editing technology has been limited by the number […]
Boosting CAR T cell survival to improve solid tumor therapy
Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR)-T cells have revolutionized cancer therapy, by reprogramming the patient’s own T cells to fight their cancer. Yet, one current limitation is that CAR-T cells don’t survive long enough to target the whole tumor. To that effect, researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital have introduced a novel approach to enhance CAR T-cell therapy […]
NUS researchers develop breakthrough gene delivery technology for immune cells
CAR-T cell therapy is one of the most promising cancer treatment strategies to have emerged recently. This personalized approach has demonstrated its effectiveness, particularly in patients who have exhausted conventional options. However, it remains costly and logistically complex. One of the main obstacles to CAR-T manufacturing lies in the introduction of genetic material into immune […]
Cancer-fighting CAR T cells show promising results for hard-to-treat tumours
A recent clinical trial published in Nature has demonstrated promising results for CAR T-cell therapy in treating solid tumours, specifically advanced gastric and gastro-oesophageal junction cancers. The experimental therapy, satricabtagene autoleucel (satri-cel), was administrered as a last resort in the patients included in this phase II trial, all of whom had previously undergone at least […]
EchoBack CAR T-cells could be a game changer in cancer immunotherapy
Researchers have introduced a next-generation CAR T-cell therapy, called EchoBack CAR T-cells, in a study published in Cell. Designed to address key limitations of current immunotherapies for solid tumors, including off-tumor toxicity, T-cell exhaustion, and limited persistence, this platform uses sonogenetic engineering to remotely activate CAR T-cells via focused ultrasound (FUS). It employs an ultrasensitive […]
Researchers develop tool to enhance NK cells against cancer
One of the functions of Natural Killer (NK) cells is to detect and eliminate cancer cells. However, in some cases they are unable to overcome the tumour’s defence mechanism, and cancer develops. To date, NK lymphocyte-based treatments have been effective in haematological tumours, but have not achieved the same level of efficacy in solid tumours. […]
New supercharged CAR-T cell therapy shows promise against resistant cancers
Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy has revolutionized cancer treatment by engineering a patient’s T-cells to target and eliminate malignant cells. However, certain cancers still evade detection, leading to treatment resistance and relapse. American researchers have recently introduced an innovative approach known as ALA-CART (adjunctive LAT-activating CAR-T cells), designed to overcome these challenges. In preclinical […]
Cancer-free for 18 years: CAR-T therapy sets new milestone in neuroblastoma treatment
Neuroblastoma, a highly aggressive childhood cancer, presents a high risk of relapse, making long-term disease control a significant challenge. A groundbreaking study published in Nature Medicine has demonstrated that GD2-directed CAR-T cell therapy can induce durable remissions, with one patient remaining cancer-free for over 18 years, the longest reported remission for a solid tumor treated with […]
New gene modification enhances CAR-T cell effectiveness against cancer
Although clinicians have successfully used CAR-T cells in cancer, many patients experience a cancer relapse caused by the hostile environment created by the cancer cells. After repeated encounters with cancer cells, CAR-T cells lose their ability to effectively divide and attack the tumour. Therefore, a research team used CRISPR screening to identify potential genes that […]