Although CD19-directed CAR T cells can initially induce remission in 70-90% of patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL), post-CAR relapses are frequent. These relapses are driven by insufficient persistence of CAR T cells, allowing for antigen-positive B-ALL re-emergence and loss of the targeted epitope either in isolation or as part of lineage-switching.
Although CAR T-cell therapies have reached significant clinical success in hematological malignancies, their utility in solid tumors remains limited. One of the main challenges is the scarcity of truly cancer-specific antigens for precise targeting of solid tumors. The use of engineered small, specific antigen-binding domains, such as nanobodies, could be a potential strategy to improve the specificity and efficacy of CAR T cells against solid tumors.
Allogenica SAS has been awarded a €2.5 million (US$2.7 million) grant under the French government’s France 2030 program to help advance its universal CAR T candidate, XL-001, for CD19-positive hematologic cancers.
A team at Baylor College of Medicine conducted research to identify novel cell-surface cancer/germline antigens (CGAs) expressed in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) that could serve as targets for development of CAR T therapies against this disease.
Bioheng Therapeutics US LLC has obtained IND approval from the FDA for CTD-402, a CD7-targeted universal CAR T-cell therapy, for the treatment of pediatric and adult patients with relapsed or refractory T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia/lymphoma.
Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a member of the herpesvirus family, is a highly common human pathogen that can remain latent in B lymphocytes after the primary infection. Although this latent state is frequently asymptomatic, in some cases, it can lead to the development of malignancies such as Burkitt lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and some gastric cancer subtypes.
In a recently published study, researchers from Cima Universidad de Navarra and collaborators presented a novel SdAb-based CAR T-cell discovery platform that allows the generation, characterization and selection of SdAbs by several properties.
Although CAR T-cell treatment can lead to clinical remissions in patients with hematological malignancies, relapse rates ultimately remain high. Previous research has found that T memory stem cell content in the infused CAR T-cell products correlated with better expansion and persistence in lymphoma patients. As a result of these observations, several approaches are being investigated to generate CAR T cells characterized by a less differentiated phenotype.
Researchers from Oxford Biomedica (UK) Ltd. have published findings from their work aiming to identify antigens that could represent novel targets for CAR T-cell therapies against acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
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