CAR-T cell therapies, which involve engineering a patient’s own T cells to target and kill cancer cells bearing specific antigens, has shown strong results in blood disorders. But many patients still progress or relapse after initial remission, because tumor cells expressing low levels of the biomarker could go undetected by the treatment.
In exploring ways to enhance CAR-T therapy, scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center took a page from natural T-cell receptors (TCRs) to design new chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) with better antigen sensitivity. The novel CAR-T cells showed improved anti-tumor activities in mouse models of lymphoma, leukemia and breast cancer, according to results published in Science Signaling.
