CellPryme-M question, page-10

Possibly “A” for “augmentation”?

Phil Darcy has said he was working to reprogram the hostile tumour microenvironment to enhance CAR-T cell anti-tumour activity.

This fairly recent paper from his lab focuses on the augmentation of antitumor responses in solid cancers by combining adoptive cellular therapy (of which CAR is one form) with checkpoint inhibition. Darcy seems to be specifically interested in targeting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis.

One approach that has been tried by other scientists is the combination of CAR-T with a checkpoint inhibitor (anti-PD-1 agent, pembrolizumab).

Another approach has been the use of gene-editing strategies such as CRISPR/Cas9 to allow more precise deletion of the PD-1 gene in CAR-T cells.