Genetic Engineering of T-cells for Adoptive Immunotherapy of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

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The immune system is highly effective at removing large-numbers of virally infected cells without damaging normal non-infected tissues, however it often remains unresponsive to cancer cells. In this project, we plan to modify T-cells, a key component of the immune system, so that they kill established cancers. We propose taking normal T-cells from patients with a form of cancer known as chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL), and genetically engineer them in the laboratory so that they kill the leukaemia cells, with a view to ultimately giving them back to the patient as a treatment. This engineering exploits our detailed understanding of how the immune system works. In a sense we will use nature‘s toolkit to create a cancer killing immune response. We will test these T-cells in mice with human leukaemias, to establish safety and effectiveness of this new form of treatment. We plan to use the data amassed from this project to prepare the ground-work for a clinical study in patients with CLL that have failed standard treatment. This work represents the beginning of a new field of therapy, where T-cells can be engineered to specifically remove harmful cell populations without damaging healthy normal tissue