Medical Design and Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech

Functional Characteristics of Antitumor T Cells Change With Increasing Time After Therapeutic Transfer

March 21, 2013 By AACR

  • Beneficial effect of genetically engineered antitumor T cells was transient.   
  • Functionality of T cells changed over time.
  • Strategies are needed to sustain antitumor functionality.

PHILADELPHIA — Scientists have characterized how the functionality of genetically engineered T cells administered therapeutically to patients with melanoma changed over time. The data, which are published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, highlight the need for new strategies to sustain antitumor T cell functionality to increase the effectiveness of this immunotherapeutic approach.

Early clinical research has indicated that cell-based immunotherapies for cancer, in particular melanoma, have potential because patients treated with antitumor T cells frequently have an initial tumor response; however, those responses are often transient.

“The cell-based immunotherapy we utilized was that of genetically engineered T cells,” said James R. Heath, Ph.D., Elizabeth W. Gilloon Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. “This approach is the most widely applicable way to generate large numbers of highly functional antitumor T cells.”

Different T cell functions are associated with distinct proteins. Heath and colleagues took a closer look at how genetically engineered T cells functioned or failed after being transferred into patients. To do this, they used a recently developed, multiplexed technology that gave them a high-resolution view of which function-associated proteins individual cells expressed.

The researchers analyzed T cells isolated from blood samples taken from three patients with melanoma at several time points after treatment with genetically engineered antimelanoma T cells. Each of the patients from whom samples were taken had exhibited a different level of response to the immunotherapy.

The most highly functioning genetically engineered antimelanoma T cells made up about 10 percent of the total population of transferred T cells.

“However, they dominated the immune response,” Heath said. “In other words, 10 percent of the cells are putting out 100 times more protein than the other cells.”

Although these highly functioning genetically engineered T cells had high tumor-killing capabilities when a patient first received them, those capabilities disappeared within two to three weeks.

“The genetically engineered T cells did recover their high functional capacity, but those functions no longer included tumor-killing,” Heath said. “However, there was another population of T cells that emerged at around one month that did exhibit tumor-killing characteristics.”

These new T cells appeared to be a byproduct, through a process known as epitope spreading, of the original genetically engineered, tumor-killing T cells the patient received, Heath explained. The researchers also discovered one potential cause for the transient response to T cell therapy. Results showed that as the patient’s own immune system recovered, after its initial depletion prior to therapy, those recovering T cells appeared to inhibit the antitumor immune response.

DeviceTalks Weekly.

May 20, 2022
DeviceTalks Boston Post-Game – Editors’ Top Moments, Insulet’s Eric Benjamin on future of Omnipod 5
See More >

MDO Digital Edition

Digital Edition

Subscribe to Medical Design & Outsourcing. Bookmark, share and interact with the leading medical design engineering magazine today.

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.
DeviceTalks

DeviceTalks is a conversation among medical technology leaders. It's events, podcasts, webinars and one-on-one exchanges of ideas & insights.

DeviceTalks

New MedTech Resource

Medical Tubing

Enewsletter Subscriptions

Enewsletter Subscriptions

MassDevice

Mass Device

The Medical Device Business Journal. MassDevice is the leading medical device news business journal telling the stories of the devices that save lives.

Visit Website
MDO ad
Medical Design and Outsourcing
  • MassDevice
  • DeviceTalks
  • MedTech 100 Index
  • Medical Tubing + Extrusion
  • Drug Delivery Business News
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing World
  • R&D World
  • About Us/Contact
  • Advertise With Us
  • Subscribe to Print Magazine
  • Subscribe to E-newsletter
  • Attend our Monthly Webinars
  • Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
  • Join our DeviceTalks Tuesdays Discussion

Copyright © 2022 WTWH Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Site Map | Privacy Policy | RSS

Search Medical Design & Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech