Evaluation of a Programmable Immune Cell Therapy for Solid Tumours

细胞疗法包括将健康细胞注射、移植或植入患者体内，以修复受损的组织和/或细胞，或杀死肿瘤细胞。目前，有三种细胞疗法被NHS批准用于治疗血癌（Kymriah，Yescarta，Tecartus），还有更多的细胞疗法正在进行临床评估。癌症是全球死亡的主要原因，占近六分之一的死亡。如果能及早发现和治疗，死亡率会降低 **，** 尽管许多癌症类型，包括卵巢癌和儿科癌症，神经母细胞瘤，即使对患者靶向治疗也是难治的。现在我们知道，血液以外的软组织癌症会抑制正常有效的免疫细胞，使它们变得温顺，无法有效地清除异常的癌细胞，从而加剧自身的生长。对于这些难以治疗的妇女和儿童癌症，需要新的治疗方法。需要一种全新的解决方案来逆转对免疫细胞的抑制作用，将被癌症胁迫的细胞转化为可以被激活的细胞，以激活其他免疫效应细胞并杀死肿瘤。该项目专注于一种全新的细胞治疗概念，如果成功，将生成初始设计有效的概念数据证明，而高度创新的细胞治疗理念可以通过重新激活抗癌免疫细胞（如T细胞）来发挥作用。该项目由英国生物技术公司Laverock Therapeutics实施，专利创新，有条件和安全关闭细胞中的基因，并通过这种美德可以灌输设计师的属性，在未来的癌症治疗是前所未有的。Laverock将执行这项工作，但将与英国癌症研究所资助的领先的癌症研究中心密切合作。他们将提供研究服务，帮助公司通过利用独特的癌症相关实验室工具来开发这一概念。这些以及其他临床前评估将证明对最大限度地利用公司的基因工程技术和提供实验室数据以支持细胞治疗设计具有重要价值。如果成功，该项目将提供新的可开发的创新，这些创新来自于技术和专业知识的独特组合。实验数据将被公布，传播，以解释工作的有益前景，这些社区受癌症影响。数据将为公司决策如何进一步将该项目的产出转化为可实现的安全，更持久和有效的癌症细胞免疫疗法。它将与癌症临床医生和公司建立合作伙伴关系。

Cell therapy involves injecting, grafting, or implanting healthy cells into a patient to repair damaged tissue and/or cells, or to kill tumour cells. Currently, three cell therapies are NHS approved as a treatment for blood cancer (Kymriah, Yescarta, Tecartus), with many more in clinical evaluation.Cancer is a leading cause of mortality worldwide, accounting for nearly one in six deaths. Mortality is reduced when it's detected and treated early**,** though many cancer types including ovarian and the paediatric cancer, neuroblastoma, remain refractory even to patient targeted therapies. It is now known that soft-tissue cancers other than blood, exacerbate their own growth as they subdue normally effective immune cells, rendering them docile and unable to effectively eliminate the abnormal cancerous cells.Novel treatments are needed for these hard-to-treat cancers in women and children. A radical new solution is needed to reverse the subduing effect on immune cells, to turn the cells being coerced by the cancer into ones that can be invigorated to activate other immune effector cells and to kill the tumour.This project focusses on a radical new, cell therapy concept and if successful, will generate proof of concept data that the initial design works, and the highly innovative cell therapy idea can work by reactivating cancer-fighting immune cells, such as T-cells.The project is carried out by Laverock Therapeutics, a UK-based biotech company with a novel, patented innovation for conditional and safe turning off genes in cells and by this virtue can instil designer properties in a future therapy for cancer that is unprecedented. Laverock will perform the work but will work closely with a leading cancer research centre of excellence, funded by Cancer Research UK. They will perform a research service helping the company develop the concept via utilization of unique cancer-related laboratory tools. These, together with other preclinical assessments will prove valuable in maximising the company's gene engineering technology and delivering the laboratory data to support the cell therapy design.If successful, the project will deliver new exploitable innovation, derived from the unique combination of technologies and expertise. Experimental data will be published, disseminated to explain the beneficial prospects of the work to these communities affected by cancer. Data will be decision making for the company on how to further translate the project's output into a realizable safe, more durable and effective cellular immunotherapy for cancer. It will derive collaborative partnerships with cancer clinicians and companies.