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，NHS批准了三种细胞疗法作为血癌的治疗方法（Kymriah, Yescarta, Tecartus），还有更多的正在临床评估中。癌症是全球死亡的主要原因，占死亡人数的近六分之一。如果及早发现和治疗，死亡率就会降低** **，尽管许多类型的癌症，包括卵巢癌和儿科癌症、神经母细胞瘤，即使对患者进行靶向治疗也难以治愈。现在我们知道，除了血液以外的软组织癌症，由于它们抑制了正常有效的免疫细胞，使它们变得温顺，无法有效地消灭异常的癌细胞，从而加剧了它们自身的生长。对于妇女和儿童这些难以治疗的癌症，需要新的治疗方法。需要一种彻底的新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变为能够激活其他免疫效应细胞并杀死肿瘤的细胞。该项目专注于一个全新的细胞治疗概念，如果成功，将产生初步设计有效的概念数据证明，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，该公司拥有一项新颖的专利创新，可以有条件地、安全地关闭细胞中的基因，从而为未来的癌症治疗注入设计特性，这是前所未有的。Laverock将执行这项工作，但将与由英国癌症研究中心资助的一家领先的卓越癌症研究中心密切合作。他们将提供一项研究服务，帮助公司利用独特的癌症相关实验室工具开发这一概念。这些与其他临床前评估一起，将证明在最大化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方面是有价值的。如果成功，该项目将带来新的可开发的创新，源于技术和专业知识的独特结合。实验数据将被公布和传播，以解释这项工作对这些受癌症影响的社区的有益前景。这些数据将成为公司如何进一步将项目成果转化为可实现的安全、更持久、更有效的癌症细胞免疫疗法的决策依据。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.