Enhancing CAR T cell therapy

Abstract

Adoptive cell therapy using chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells has shown remarkable efficacy in the treatment of haematological malignancies, with complete remission rates of 90% reported in early clinical trials. Following this success, two CD19 targeting CAR T cell products have been approved in Australia for the treatment of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. However, acquired resistance to this therapy through CD19 antigen loss is an emerging problem. Moreover, such promising results have not been recapitulated against solid tumours. This is thought to be due in part to poor CAR T cell trafficking and infiltration, the immunosuppressive tumour microenviron..