New Waves of Tumor-targeting T Cells – Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy
Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Imagine a potential self-renewing therapy that acts as its own T-cell factory, capable of generating new waves of tumor-targeting T cells. A first-in-human Phase I Nature Portfolio study led by Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD, Director of the PICI Center at UCLA and a team including Owen Witte, MD, Co-Director of the PICI Center at UCLA, and PICI Investigators Cristina Puig Saus, PhD, and Lili Yang, PhD, details a strategy to program the immune system at its root: engineering stem cells to generate a durable, self-renewing supply of tumor-fighting T cells
This Phase I trial paired conventional NY-ESO-1 TCR-modified T cells with autologous HSCs expressing the same receptor, creating two coordinated waves of immune attack in patients with advanced sarcoma.
Key takeaways:
Two coordinated waves: First, infused T cells mounted an immediate response; then, weeks later, new T cells from the engineered stem cells appeared, remained functional and showed no signs of exhaustion—within the short observation period.
Trackable and controllable: A PET-visible suicide gene allowed tracking of HSC-derived cells and enables future ablation if needed.
Durability reimagined: This approach could extend T cell persistence – addressing a key limitation in solid tumor cell therapies.
Why it matters:
By programming the immune system at its root, this strategy offers a path toward longer-lasting protection against hard-to-treat tumors and expands the reach of TCR therapies beyond sarcoma. This work exemplifies PICI’s mission to drive bold science that overcomes the biggest barriers in cancer immunotherapy – delivering smarter, more durable treatments to patients.
Read the full study in Nature Communications.”
Title: Human cancer-targeted immunity via transgenic hematopoietic stem cell progeny
Authors: Theodore S. Nowicki, Nataly Naser Al Deen, Cole W. Peters, Begoña Comin-Anduix, Egmidio Medina, Cristina Puig-Saus, Ignacio Baselga Carretero, Paula Kaplan-Lefko, Mignonette H. Macabali, Ivan Perez Garcilazo, Daniel Chen, Jia Pang, Beata Berent-Maoz, Salem Haile, Jonathan Rodriguez, Moe Kawakami, Conner K. Kidd, Ameya Champhekar, Giuseppe Carlucci, Agustin Vega-Crespo, Bartosz Chmielowski, Arun Singh, Noah Federman, Gary M. Schiller, Sarah J. Larson, Martin Allen-Auerbach, Alexandra M. Klomhaus, Jerome Zack, David Baltimore, Lili Yang, Donald B. Kohn, Owen N. Witte, Antoni Ribas
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