Marshmallow-Like Immunotherapy Factory Fends off Cancer; Says Recent Study

Researchers from North Carolina State University have recently developed a marshmallow-like implant that train's a patient's immune system to fend off cancer. In concluded mice tests, the technique showed significant promise and was more effective in combating cancer cells and can be enacted quicker than other conventional immunotherapies.

Development of Marshmallow-like Immunotherapy

CAR T cell immunotherapy is one of the emerging cancer treatments that shows great promise. In this therapy, doctors remove a patient's immune cells and activate them to hunt down cancer before reintroducing them back into the patient's body. Despite the treatment's effectiveness, it usually takes several weeks to prepare and costs a tremendous amount of money.

In the recent study published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, titled "Bioinstructive implantable scaffolds for rapid in vivo manufacture and release of CAR-T cells," a team of NCSU researchers developed a novel method of performing a majority of the process inside the patient's body. Researchers call the novel technology "Multifuncional Alginate Scaffolds for T cell Engineering and Release" or MASTER. As the name suggests, MASTER is marshmallow-like scaffolds that release promising CAR T cells.

Novel Marshmallow-Like Scaffolds Fend Off Cancer in Mice Model

The process begins similar to regular CAR T cell therapy. First, the team collects T cells from the patient's body and strategically programs them to target cancer. Researchers mix the cells with engineered viruses that introduce the CAR gene to do this. However, the next step is different; the mixture is added to MASTER, which absorbs the concoction like marshmallows.

MASTER contains antibodies that activate the absorbed T cells and interleukins that trigger the proliferation of the cell. After the implantation of the device onto the patient, the antibodies within activate the T cells, which interact with the viruses, becoming CAR T cells. On the other hand, the interleukins drive the CAR T cells to proliferate, and the newly trained army exits the marshmallow-like MASTER, hunting down cancer cells within the body.

Researchers explain that the technique has several advantages over CAR T cell immunotherapies. The novel process is faster, taking only a few hours instead of several weeks. Additionally, since the cells are "fresher," they can stay in the patient's body longer, showing stronger potency to fend off cancer, and display fewer T cell exhaustion markers.

Tests conducted in mice with lymphoma showed these advantages. The team treated one group of mice with CAR T cells using the novel marshmallow-like scaffolds, while another was treated with the conventional CAR T cells therapy, while a control group received normal T cells.

Pritha Agarwalla, the lead author, says that the experiment results showed that the mice treated with CAR T cells via MASREWR were significantly better at fending off tumors than the mice who received conventional CAR T cell treatments. Additionally, the MASTER mice showed longer efficacy, successfully combating the recurrence of lymphoma, reports NewAtlas.

The team believes that the treatment should be significantly faster and less expensive than the currently used CAR T cell immunotherapies; however, more work is needed before human clinical trials.