Researchers Develop Novel Implantable Immunotherapy To Fight Cancer

May, 2022 - By SMI

The newly developed implantable biotechnology can produce and release CAR-T cells to attack cancerous tumors, and when tested in animals it proved to faster and more effective

Now a team of researchers from the North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced the development of new implantable biotechnology that can produce and release CAR-T cells to attack cancerous tumors. When tested in a proof-of-concept study that involved mice with lymphoma, the treatment was found to be faster and more effective compared to tradition CAR-T cell therapies for cancer.

In CAR T cell immunotherapy, immune cells of a patient are removed and triggered to hunt down cancer before introducing them to the body. However, this treatment takes a long time and is expensive. The scientists in this new researcher developed a method to perform this procedure inside the body of the patient. The new research is dubbed as Multifunctional Alginate Scaffolds for T cell Engineering and Release (MASTER), which as per the name are sponge-like scaffolds releasing CAR T cells. The process of this new method starts similar to the traditional CAR T cell therapy. The team first collected T cells from a patient, programmed them to attack cancer and mixed them with an engineered virus that then introduced the CAR gene. However, the next step differs from the regular one as the mixture is then added to a MASTER, where it gets absorbed.

Furthermore, the antibodies present in the MASTER activated the T cells. When the device is implanted into a patient the antibodies trigger the T cells to interact with the viruses in order to become CAR T cells. These CAR T cells are then activated for proliferating by the interleukins and then they exist the MASTER to attack cancer cells in the body.  According to the team, this technique offers various advantages over the traditional CAR T cell immunotherapies. When tested in mice the new technique proved to be faster and more effective.