Researchers from IIT Bombay and Monash University have developed a gentler method to recover lab-grown T-cells used in cancer immunotherapy. The breakthrough addresses a major challenge in CAR T-cell therapy by improving cell survival and efficiency
Efficient recovery of T-cells is a key requirement for CAR T-cell-based cancer immunotherapy. Representation pic/iSTOCK
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay), in collaboration with Melbourne-based Monash University, have developed a simpler and gentler method to recover lab-grown immune cells used in T-cell-based cancer therapies. A team from the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering at IIT Bombay, led by Prof Prakriti Tayalia, developed a new method to gently recover T-cells after growing them in the laboratory, the institute said in a release. The study was carried out in collaboration with Prof Neil Cameron of Monash University.
Immunotherapy, which involves boosting the body’s own immune system to recognise and destroy cancer cells, has shown promising results in cancer treatment. In immunotherapies such as CAR T-cell therapy, doctors take T-cells (a type of immune cell) from a patient’s blood and modify them in the laboratory so they can better recognise and attack cancer cells. These modified cells are then grown in large numbers and infused back into the patient’s bloodstream to help fight cancer. A key requirement for T-cell-based immunotherapy is an ample supply of healthy, active T-cells. These cells, grown outside the body, must be collected gently so that they remain alive and functional when returned to the patient. Finding safe and efficient ways to grow T-cells and retrieve them is, therefore, an important part of making these therapies work.
Prof Tayalia and her team worked with a specific type of scaffold made using a process called electrospinning. Earlier studies by the team and other research groups have shown that T-cells grown on such scaffolds become more active and multiply faster. However, as T-cells move deep into the spaces between the fibres, they become difficult to remove. For any therapy, cells must be collected, tested and finally delivered to patients, and if too many cells remain trapped in the scaffold, the process becomes inefficient. “Cell recovery sounds simple on paper, but in practice it turns out to be one of the biggest challenges,” said Prof Tayalia, adding that without enough healthy cells, they cannot be tested properly for the therapy.
To address this problem, the team grew Jurkat T-cells (a human cell line grown and used in the laboratory to study T-cell biology, cancer and HIV) inside electrospun scaffolds made from a material called polycaprolactone. The researchers observed that the cells actively moved into the scaffold and became tightly lodged between the fibres. Even strong flushing with a pipette using the growth medium could not remove all the cells, especially those stuck at fibre junctions.
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