Microfluidic technology to isolate tumoricidal T-cells from peripheral blood

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PROJECT SUMMARY Adoptive cell transfer (ACT) using ex vivo expanded anti-tumor T-cells has garnered significant interest due to successes in treating melanoma and other cancers. This is a highly personalized therapy, in which autologous T-cells that can target the tumors are required. However, finding cells that specifically target tumors remains a major hurdle for the widespread application of T-cell based ACT therapies. The current methods of lymphocyte enrichment result in modest increases in tumoricidal T-cells with little control over the clonal heterogeneity. A technology that overcomes these challenges would significantly lower the barriers (e.g., reduce cost, reduce off-target effects) for broad dissemination of ACT therapies. The primary goal of this project is to develop a separation technology to enrich a population of lymphocytes with tumoricidal T-cells based on their capacity to recognize autologous tumor antigens. The premise of our microfluidic technology is that tumoricidal T-cells can be separated from a bulk leukocyte population when exposed to tumor-derived peptide-major histocompatibility complex I under optimal flow conditions. The specific aims are to: 1) Develop a microfluidic device to enrich a population of lymphocytes with antigen specific T-cells, and 2) Demonstrate the capacity of the microfluidic platform to enrich patient-derived Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells with tumoricidal T-cells using patient- matched tumor cells. Accomplishing our primary goal will create a potentially disruptive technology that could pave way for wide-spread application of T-cell based ACT therapies, and the agnostic feature (i.e., no a priori knowledge of tumor antigen(s) is required) of the technology would make it broadly applicable for a personalized medicine approach to a range of cancers.