Addition to T Cell Expansion Media Leads to Improved Antitumor Efficacy in Mice
Source: Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, January 2025
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have developed a new way to grow T cells in the lab that enables the cells to live longer and better destroy cancer cells in a mouse model of melanoma, compared with those cells grown using traditional growth media. T cell therapies for cancer currently rely on extensive in vitro expansion of the cells, which are then reinfused back into the body. For their study the team used the small molecule dichloroacetate (DCA) to “shift glucose usage” in the T cells during expansion, which they found improved cell metabolism, stemness and survival, and resulted in better antitumor efficacy in mice.
The findings, they suggest, could have the potential to greatly improve the effectiveness of relevant cancer immunotherapies. “The way we traditionally grow T cells in the lab is horribly inefficient,” said Greg Delgoffe, PhD, professor in the department of immunology at Pitt’s School of Medicine and director of the Tumor Microenvironment Center at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. “We make millions of T cells and we infuse them back into a patient, but most of the cells die. Our research is uncovering new ways to manufacture T cells that live for a long time with the goal of making cell therapies more effective.”
Cell therapy is a type of treatment that involves removing immune cells from the patient, expanding them in the lab and then transferring these living cells back into the patient. Common forms of adoptive cell therapy (ACT) that use T cells—the immune system’s soldiers that fight infections and cancers—include chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapy, which uses T cells that have been modified to better target cancer, and tumor infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy, which uses naturally occurring T cells that can fight the tumor.