Another Day, Another Cause For Hope
Glioblastoma(GBM) is amongst the most difficult types of cancer to treat.
Researchers from Mass General Cancer Treatment Center in Boston may just have themselves a breakthrough using immunotherapy, specifically Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cells or CAR-T, they have achieved regression of of this very aggressive form of cancer in just days. Three patients received therapy, and all three saw regression, but in two of the patients it was not lasting.
https://www.sciencealert.com/breakthrough-therapy-obliterates-deadly-brain-tumor-in-days?fbclid=IwAR2VSbRoNazxe2Dj9F2sWGQPYTov9IIz9QVfKcLj0-kEQml8dzC5rf9UaKY
CAR-T works by leveraging the way your immune system works. Your immune system keeps surveillance throughout your body by checking the outsides of cells constantly. Each of your cells is not just a smooth wall holding all the cell stuff inside. Instead, it is studded with different proteins that serve different functions. Your immune system recognizes YOUR proteins and checks for “Self” constantly.
identifying the outside of a bad guy cell, typically a bacteria or virally infected cell of your own, the immune system sees “Not Self” and attacks. (This is also the basis of autoimmune disease when your immune system gets it wrong.)
By collecting sample after sample of glioblastoma from previous patients and looking at what proteins are typically on cancerous cells (And not healthy ones) researchers know roughly what proteins will be on the outside of a tumor. Using CAR-T your immune system can be programmed to go after the bad guy cell(The cancer cell)
The excellent folks at Dana Farber Institute have a good video on this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OadAW99s4Ik
Big shout out of props to the Mass General Cancer Team
The paper is here
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2314390
Abstract
Summary
In this first-in-human, investigator-initiated, open-label study, three participants with recurrent glioblastoma were treated with CARv3-TEAM-E T cells, which are chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells engineered to target the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) variant III tumor-specific antigen, as well as the wild-type EGFR protein, through secretion of a T-cell–engaging antibody molecule (TEAM). Treatment with CARv3-TEAM-E T cells did not result in adverse events greater than grade 3 or dose-limiting toxic effects. Radiographic tumor regression was dramatic and rapid, occurring within days after receipt of a single intraventricular infusion, but the responses were transient in two of the three participants. (Funded by Gateway for Cancer Research and others; INCIPIENT ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT05660369. opens in new tab.)
