Bridging between personalized medicine and T-cell based immunotherapy

For several years now, it is known that the immune response against tumor cells is crucial to the elimination of cancer. Several types of immune cells play an important role in the eradication of cancer tumors. Amongst them are T-lymphocytes which can recognize and kill cancer cells. Cell therapy using Tumor Infiltrating T-Lymphocytes (TILs) has been shown to cause tumor regression in terminally-ill patients, with noticeable percentages of complete remission. Unfortunately, in many cases, it is impossible to isolate such cells. Thus, using our expertise in gene therapy and our understanding of the immune system, we have devised innovative strategies in which we can modify genetically white blood cells from cancer patients to produce artificial molecules that can induce and/or magnify the anti-tumor response, causing these lymphocytes to recognize and kill more efficiently tumor cells. Our current goals include better understanding the nature of the immune response against cancer, targeting other types of cancer (such as lung, colon, breast, liver, ovarian cancers and leukemia), optimizing and enhancing the quality of the engineered lymphocytes, making them resistant to tumor-induced inhibitory influences. Moreover, we will show how one could track these artificially-enhanced cells in vivo and will also discuss how the genetic information of patient tumors can be harnessed to develop novel cancer targeting agents, bridging the gap between personalized medicine and immunotherapy.

Thus, we are exploring new ways to create and improve the anti-cancer response by patients’ immune cells, which have important implications for the clinical treatment of cancer using immunotherapy approaches.