Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have discovered that some CAR-T cells engineered to fight cancer and other conditions carry the memory of past encounters with bacteria, viruses and other antigens within them, a finding that may allow scientists to manufacture the cells in more precise and targeted ways.
The study, published today in the journal Nature Immunology, focused on chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells, an effective therapy against cancer, especially leukemia and lymphoma. T cells, a kind of immune cell, are removed from the patient’s blood, then modified to target cancer and infused back into the patient.
Now researchers have discovered that some of these cells have long, durable memories. They found that even after an extensive manufacturing process to insert the CAR into the cells, CAR-T cells that had past contact with antigens behave differently than those that have never encountered an antigen.
“Unlike most drugs, CAR-T cell products are not uniform. We know that variability exists but the nature of that variability is only beginning to be understood,” said the study’s senior author Terry Fry, MD, professor of pediatrics, oncology and hematology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and executive director of the Gates Institute at CU Anschutz which manufactures CAR-T cells. “The thing that was surprising here was the extent to which past interactions with antigens were durably imprinted on the cells.”
Fry and the study’s lead author Kole DeGolier, PhD, an immunology researcher at CU Anschutz, found that `memory cells,’