genTIL: Generation of a commercially viable Tumour Infiltrating Lymphocyte (TIL) therapy

癌症特异性T细胞疗法（ACT）是一种个性化药物，利用患者免疫系统的力量指导肿瘤特异性T细胞杀死癌细胞。过继性T细胞治疗领域已经接近临床前承诺现在成为临床现实的地步。自1988年首次报道使用TIL疗法以来，它已经经历了几代改进，使用“年轻TIL”的TIL T细胞和患者预处理的试验产生了优异的反应率-约40%至50%的长期反应和约10-20%的治愈率。这一细胞治疗领域的巨大潜力已经得到了赞助多中心临床试验的主要制药公司的认可（例如Novartis -CTL 019，Adaptimmune/GSK-NY-ESO-1 SPECTRA ™）。市场需要一种适用于TIL疗法工业化的稳健的、可重复的、后勤上可扩展的商业方法。然而，这种形式的细胞疗法在工业规模上的广泛应用目前受到与提供个性化癌症治疗相关的复杂性的严重限制。该项目计划解决使TIL疗法在商业上可行的主要障碍：（i）收集点和（ii）细胞材料和最终产品的稳定化。

Cancer specific Adoptive T-Cell therapy (ACT) is a form of personalised medicine that harnesses the power of the patient's immune system to direct tumour-specific T-cells to kill cancer cells. The field of adoptive T-cell therapy has approached a point where the pre-clinical promise is now a clinical reality. Since the first report of use of TIL therapy in 1988, it has gone through several generations of improvement with trials using “Young TILs” unselected T cells and patient preconditioning producing excellent response rates – around 40% to 50% long term responses and around 10-20% cures. The vast potential of this field of cell therapy has been acknowledged by major pharmaceutical companies who are sponsoring multi-centre clinical trials (e.g. Novartis - CTL019, Adaptimmune/GSK - NY-ESO-1 SPEAR™). There is a market need for a robust reproducible, logistically scalable commercial process suitable for industrialisation of TIL Therapy. However, the wide-spread application of this form of cell therapy on an industrial scale is currently severely limited by the complexity associated with delivering a personalised cancer therapy. This project plans to address the major hurdles in making TIL therapy commercially viable: (i) point of collection and (ii) stabilisation of cellular material and final product.