New research utilises body’s own immune system to fight cancer.
How your own immune cells can be engineered to fight cancer.
Overview:
A new study led by scientists at the University of Minnesota shows how engineered immune cells used in new cancer therapies can surpass physical barriers to allow a patient’s own immune system to fight tumours. The research could improve cancer treatments in the future for millions of people all around the globe.
The research is published in Nature Communications, a peer-reviewed, open access, scientific journal published by Nature Research.
Immunotherapy: CAR T cells:
As opposed to using chemicals (chemotherapy) or radiation (radiotherapy), immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that boosts the body’s natural defences to fight cancer. It can involve using immune cells made by the body, extracted and engineered in a laboratory, to improve how your immune system works to find and destroy cancer cells. Cytotoxic T cells are a sub-type T cells that are of key importance to the immune system. Cytotoxic T cells are like soldiers who search out and destroy cancer cells and other foreign invading cells. CAR T cell immunotherapy involves extraction of cytotoxic T cells from the patient, which are then engineered, for example, via the addition of ‘Chimeric Antigen Receptors’ onto the surface of the T cells, these are structures that allow the T cells to specifically target cancer cells as appose to your healthy body cells. (See below for an overview of the bodies immune cells and CAR T cell therapy).
While there has been success in using immunotherapy for some types of cancer in the blood, such as Leukaemia, or blood-producing organs, a T cell’s job is much more difficult in solid tumours.
Paolo Provenzano, the senior author of the study and a biomedical engineering associate professor in the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering explained how; “the tumour is sort of like an obstacle course, and the T cell has to run the gauntlet to reach the cancer cells. These T cells get into tumours, but they just can’t move around well, and they can’t go where they need to go before they run out of gas and are exhausted.”
CAR T cells: Overcoming the Tumours Physical Barriers:
In this pioneering study that takes CAR T cell therapy to a whole new level, the researchers are working to engineer the T cells further and develop engineering design criteria to mechanically optimise the cells or make them more “fit” to overcome the physical barriers of a tumour, which causes the immune cells to slow down about two-fold. However, if these immune cells can recognise and get to the cancer cells, then they can destroy the tumour.
In order to engineer the T cells, the authors used state-of-the-art gene editing technologies (also known as genome editing) to alter the DNA of the T cells such that they will now contain components which will allow them to overcome the tumour’s barriers. The researchers are working to create cells that are good at overcoming different kinds of barriers. Therefore, upon mixing these cells together, groups of immune cells may be able to overcome the plethora of barriers that faces them in order to reach the cancer cells.
The Next Steps:
Provenzano explained how the next steps are to continue studying the three dimensional movements and interactions of immune cells with their environment and cancer cells. Models for three dimensional cellular interactions can now be created thanks to super-resolution imaging techniques, such as ‘super resolution stimulated emission depletion microscopy, or STED’, which gives nanometer precision, that’s roughly 0.0000001 centimeters!
Researchers are currently studying engineered immune cells in rodents and in the future are planning clinical trials in humans.
While initial research has been focused on pancreatic cancer, Provenzano said the techniques they are developing could be used on many types of cancers.
“Using a cell engineering approach to fight cancer is a relatively new field,” Provenzano said. “It allows for a personalised approach with applications for a plethora of cancers. We feel we are expanding a new line of research to look at how our own bodies can fight cancer. This could have a big impact in the future.”
