New study with UCLA researchers finds improvements to T-cell therapy for cancer
Source: Daily Bruin, October 2022
Researchers from UCLA, Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania have created a system that could improve upon an existing type of therapy for cancer known as T-cell therapy.
T-cells, a type of immune cell in the body, can mount a response against cancer cells, although their response is not strong enough, said Dr. Anusha Kalbasi, an assistant professor of radiation oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine. He added that T-cell therapy research focuses on engineering T-cells to allow them to target cancer cells with greater precision. Kalbasi said these therapeutic T-cells need to compete with naturally occurring T-cells to multiply in the body.
Patients undergo chemotherapy to decrease the number of naturally occurring T-cells in the body, a process called preconditioning, said Leon Su, a staff research scientist in the Garcia Lab at Stanford University, adding that preconditioning can cause many negative side effects for patients.