Mouse Models and Killer T Cells.

• Author: Kumar, Reggie
• Position: MEDICINE & HEALTH

Astudy led by Robert Prins and Linda Liau of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, published in the journal Neuro-Oncology, looked at the impact of a combined treatment for glioblastoma--the most-common and deadliest form of brain cancer--using a chemotherapy drug called decitabine and genetically modified immune cells. It is a continuation of previous research that focused on the effect of decitabine on glioblastoma human cell cultures.

Prins and Liau used a technique called engineered adoptive T cell transfer, which involves extracting and growing immune cells outside of the body, then reprogramming them with the gene for a T cell receptor targeting New York esophageal squamous carcinoma, or NY-ESO-1. They then are injected back into mice with glioblastoma tumors to produce an immune response that targets the brain cancer.

Glioblastoma cells do not produce NY-ESO-1 naturally, so the researchers administered decitabine prior to injecting the reprogrammed T cells in order to cause the tumor cells to express the NY-ESO-1 target. "The lymphocytes will seek out and find the glioblastoma cells in the brain," says Prins, associate professor in the departments of Neurosurgery and Molecular and Medical Pharmacology.

"They can cross...