CAR T Cell Therapy Has Shown Promising Result In Cancer Treatment

CAR T Cell Therapy

CAR T Cell Therapy is a customized immunotherapy that uses a patient’s cells to treat cancer. CAR T Cells are engineered to recognize and attack cancer cells while sparing healthy tissue.

A typical CAR T-cell therapy is made of a combination of fragments, or domains, from the heavy (H) and light chains of a lab-made antibody. These domains are connected via a flexible linker to form a single-chain variable fragment antibody (scFv) — the portion of the therapy that's responsible for binding to the tumor cell antigen. Each scFv has different characteristics that affect how well it binds to and recognizes its target.

CAR T Cell Therapy has been shown to have promising results in several clinical trials, and some types are already approved for use in the US. Using a process called T-cell transfer, providers extract a patient’s T cells and modify them in the laboratory with the addition of chimeric antigen receptors (CARs). These artificial molecules, which are not found naturally in the body, allow the modified T cells to recognize and destroy cancer cells.

The modified T cells are then infused back into the patient, where they continue to multiply and, guided by their engineered receptors, target and kill any cancer cells that match the targeted antigen. CAR T-cells are currently being used to treat a variety of blood cancers, including multiple myeloma, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) after first relapse, and follicular lymphoma, as well as some solid tumors, such as glioblastoma and ovarian cancer. The goal of this type of immunotherapy is to harness the body's immune system to fight cancer. The T cells in the immune system are modified to recognize and target specific tumor antigens. These cells are then infused back into the patient, where they grow and multiply to help attack the cancer.

One of the challenges with this type of treatment is that the engineered cells can also recognize healthy tissue, which is often expressed at the same site as the targeted cancer antigen. That can trigger off-tumor toxicity, which is a potentially life-threatening side effect. Fortunately, this can be mitigated by carefully selecting the tumor antigen to target. Currently, patients with certain types of cancer, such as lymphoma, are the best candidates for CAR T Cell Therapy. Patients with solid tumors are less likely to respond, and there are only a few cases of CAR T-cell therapies being used to treat these cancers. A trial Srour is leading for advanced kidney cancer, however, is showing promise in this area.