Yan Leyfman, Medical Oncologist, Co-Founder and Executive Director of MedNews Week, shared a post on LinkedIn about a recent article by Yan-Ruide Li et al. published in PNAS:
“New advances in pancreatic cancer immunotherapy
Pancreatic cancer remains one of the most lethal malignancies, with most patients diagnosed at advanced stages. Traditional CAR-T strategies have struggled in this setting due to tumor heterogeneity, immune escape, exhaustion, and scalability limits.
A new preclinical study developed off-the-shelf Allo15MCAR-NKT cells: IL-15–enhanced, mesothelin-targeted CAR-engineered invariant NKT cells derived from stem cells.
Key takeaways:
- Multi-mechanism tumor killing (CAR and NK receptor pathways)
- Sustained activity with fewer exhaustion markers
- Effective control of primary and metastatic pancreatic tumors in xenograft models
- No GVHD and minimal cytokine release syndrome
- Off-the-shelf design addresses manufacturing and scalability barriers
Why it matters: This platform may offer a next-generation, scalable immunotherapy approach capable of tackling key obstacles in pancreatic cancer, particularly in advanced and metastatic disease.”
Title: Targeting orthotopic and metastatic pancreatic cancer with allogeneic stem cell–engineered mesothelin-redirected CAR-NKT cells
Authors: Yan-Ruide Li, Xinyuan Shen, Enbo Zhu, Zhe Li, Jie Huang, Thuc Le, Catrina Tran, Caius G. Radu, Lili Yang
Read the Full Article on PNAS
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