CAR Factory: New approaches in immune cell therapy (Press Office UCT)

Cancer cells that develop in the body from healthy cells develop mechanisms to avoid being attacked by the immune system. German Cancer Aid is therefore funding the CAR Factory project with four million euros. The aim is to further develop a new type of immunotherapy that makes tumor cells vulnerable to the immune system. The research network aims to further develop a therapy method that has been approved in Europe since 2018, known as chimeric antigen receptor cell therapy, or CAR cell therapy for short. In CAR cell therapy, certain cells of the immune system are genetically modified so that they recognize specific surface markers on the tumour. This enables the CAR cells to destroy even well-camouflaged tumor cells in a targeted manner.

Until now, medical professionals have only been able to use CAR cell therapy to treat certain types of blood and lymphatic cancers. However, universities and research centers are conducting intensive research into promising CAR immune cell therapies for other types of cancer, reports Prof. Dr. Evelyn Ullrich, co-spokesperson of the network. She is Head of the Department of Experimental Immunology and Cell Therapy at the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at Frankfurt University Hospital. "However, there is often a lack of resources to further develop their therapeutic effectiveness in translational studies. The transfer of laboratory findings into clinical trials is one of the greatest challenges for cellular immunotherapy," says Prof. Dr. Ullrich. Prof. Dr. Jan-Henning Klusmann, Director of the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at Frankfurt University Hospital, explains the relevance of the project for medical practice: "We hope that the CAR Factory will close a gap between basic research and the clinic. The ambitious team would like to bring the first possible target structure for CAR cell therapy from the laboratory to clinical trials in just two years. This would be a major step forward for the treatment of children and adolescents with cancer, as well as adults."

Further information about the research network can be found on the German Cancer Aid homepage:
www.krebshilfe.de/forschen/projekte/foerderschwerpunkte/praeklinische-wirkstoffentwicklung/car-factory/