Ludwig Cancer Research scientists have devised new types of chimeric antigen-receptor (CAR) T cells-;a type of cancer immunotherapy -;that can be switched on to varying degrees of intensity and then switched off on demand with existing drugs. The design and preclinical evaluation of the CAR-T cells, led by Melita Irving and Greta Maria Paola Giordano Attianese of the Lausanne Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, is detailed in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . CAR-T cells are already used today to treat a number of blood cancers, but solid tumors continue to pose significant challenges for this mode of therapy in terms of both safety and efficacy .
We have potentially addressed both these issues by engineering, directly into the CAR design, on and off switches that are engaged by drugs that have been approved by regulatory agencies and are already in use in the clinic. This should hasten the advancement of these remotely controlled CAR-T cells into clinical trials." Melita Irving, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research CAR-T cells express synthetic receptors that detect specific molecular markers, or antigens , on cancer cells using an antibody fragment as an external sensor.
When the CAR binds its antigen on a cancer cell, its signaling modules are activated and trigger the T cell's innate cytotoxic weaponry to destroy tumor cells. The trouble is that many solid tumor antigens are found on healthy cells as well, raising t.
