I-Corps: Chimeric Antigen Receptor mediated immunosynapse assay

这个I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是促进新的嵌合抗原受体（CAR）修饰的细胞疗法的发现和开发，以及改善癌症患者的个性化药物。这项技术可以让细胞治疗行业的所有部门的科学家发现和开发新的更有效的细胞疗法。该技术可以通过提供一种有效和可重复的方法来分析和预测研究和开发过程中不同CAR修饰细胞的功效，从而推动细胞治疗领域的发展。该平台还具有通过创建更快、更容易的个性化医疗途径来改善患者护理的潜力。目前，有资格接受细胞疗法的患者需要接受多轮癌症治疗，并需要迅速采取行动以防止疾病进展。这项技术可以作为医学肿瘤学家的诊断工具，快速确定可用于癌症患者的最有效的细胞疗法，从而加快患者接受正确治疗的过程。总的来说，这项技术可能会通过加快细胞疗法的开发和改善患者护理来影响科学界和医疗界。这个I-Corps项目进一步开发了一种诊断工具，以提高嵌合抗原受体（CAR）修饰细胞疗法的有效性。CAR细胞疗法使用遗传修饰的供体免疫细胞直接识别和杀死癌细胞。目前的CAR细胞疗法和临床试验中的那些疗法已经成功地治疗了难治性血癌。更多的治疗方法正在临床开发中，用于血液和实体癌。识别和杀死癌细胞的关键是CAR修饰的细胞和癌细胞之间的通信强度，称为免疫/免疫突触。预测CAR修饰的细胞在患者中的功效和效力是细胞免疫治疗中尚未解决的关键问题之一。免疫突触的质量与CAR细胞疗法的疗效密切相关。这里开发的技术是一种使用机器学习算法分析CAR修饰细胞和癌细胞之间免疫突触质量的快速方法。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact / commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to facilitate the discovery and development of new chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-modified cell therapies as well as improvement of personalized medicine for cancer patients. This technology may allow scientists across all sectors of the cellular therapy industry to discover and develop new and more effective cell therapies. The technology may advance the field of cell therapy by providing an efficient and reproducible way to analyze and predict the efficacy of different CAR-modified cells during research and development. The platform also has the potential to improve patient care by creating a faster and easier route to personalized medicine. Currently, patients eligible to receive cellular therapies undergo multiple rounds of cancer treatment and require swift action to prevent disease progression. This technology may serve as a diagnostic tool for medical oncologists to rapidly determine the most effective cell therapy available for cancer patients, thereby speeding the process of enrolling patients in the right course of treatment. Overall, this technology may impact both the scientific and healthcare communities by expediting cell therapy development and improving patient care.This I-Corps project further develops a diagnostic tool to improve the effectiveness of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) modified cell therapies. CAR cell therapies use genetically modified donor immune cells to directly recognize and kill cancer cells. Current CAR cell therapies and those in clinical trials have been successful with refractory blood cancers. Many more therapies are in clinical development for both blood and solid cancers. Key to the recognition and killing of cancer cells is the strength of the communication between the CAR-modified cells and the cancer cells, called the immunological/immune synapse. Predicting the efficacy and potency of CAR-modified cells in patients represents one of the key unsolved problems in cell immunotherapy. The quality of immunosynapse correlates well with the efficacy of CAR cell therapies. The technology developed here is a rapid method of analyzing the quality of immunosynapse between CAR-modified cells and cancer cells using machine learning algorithms. This technology may contribute to understanding of the immunosynapse biology and improve clinical translation of new CAR cell therapies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.