FIU Researchers Discover New Way of Extending Immune Cell Lifespan and Effectiveness

CAR-T therapy has been transformational in treating many blood cancers, such as leukemia and lymphoma. However, this treatment approach hasn’t worked for solid tumors, and it also reaches a point and becomes ineffective in blood cancers. A new study just found a way to boost the lifespan and efficacy window of these important immune cells that help fight cancer. 

The study, whose findings appeared in the journal Frontiers in Immunology, was conducted by a team at Florida International University (FIU). The researchers spent about five years studying why cancer-fighting immune cells lose their effectiveness and don’t survive for long. 

They were particularly interested in establishing how tumor cells develop a protective mechanism against the immune cells targeting them. During their lab study, the researchers analyzed blood samples obtained from more than five dozen individuals who either had a blood cancer like lymphoma or were healthy. 

The analysis revealed that blood cancer patients had elevated levels of galectin-3, a protein that coats the surface of CAR-T immune cells. They observed that this particular protein had the effect of weakening the immune cells’ ability to combat cancer. The protein compromised the strength of the immune cells, thereby throttling their cancer-fighting ability. 

To overcome this challenge, the scientists leveraged glycoengineering to modify the sugar coating on the immune cells so that the target protein galectin-3 could no longer bind to the surfaces of the immune cells. 

They tested the engineered CAR-T cells in mice that had developed lymphoma and found that the immune cells were able to last much longer without becoming exhausted, and they fought more effectively against the cancer cells to the extent that disease progression was arrested more effectively than in mice that only had the normal CAR-T cells administered to them. 

This discovery opens the possibility of improving the way various cancers are treated using CAR-T therapy, particularly solid tumors that have thus far been unresponsive to CAR-T therapy since these tweaked cells don’t last long enough to mount an effective fight against these cancers. 

A major plus for this research is that it doesn’t fundamentally alter current CAR-T therapy. Instead, it simply upgrades the existing approach so that it can pack a bigger punch against cancer. The FIU researchers are currently continuing to study their glycoengineering approach to see whether it can be applied to other kinds of cancer, including solid tumors. 

This preclinical breakthrough comes at a time when numerous academic institutions and for-profit entities like Calidi Biotherapeutics Inc. (NYSE American: CLDI) are also making their own discoveries that could transform cancer immunotherapy in the coming years. 

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