New study highlights cell power as a functional biomarker for preventing tumour escape
pharmafile | January 26, 2022 | News story | Research and Development |
LUMICKS announced that new research findings published in Translational Medicine detailed a novel design strategy for preventing tumour escape through improved chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy for common blood cancers.
Using both cell avidity measurements, as provided by LUMICKS’ z-Movi Cell Avidity Analyser, the researchers successfully demonstrated that co-expression of costimulatory receptors (CCR) along with an FDA approved BCMA and CD19 CAR can improve the durability of potential treatments. Researchers also hope that this can improve ability to recognise various variants of multiple myeloma and acute lymphoblastic leukaemia with low antigen density.
This dual-targeting approach offers a new avenue for next-generation therapies which may overcome many problems of current approved therapies, including high rates of relapse.
“The z-Movi platform’s distinct ability to measure and quantify avidity provides a powerful tool for immuno-oncologists,” said Maria Themeli, MD, PhD Assistant Professor at Amsterdam UMC and corresponding author of the study. “The instrument provided an essential piece of evidence in our investigation, giving us critical insight into how these engineered cells work and what is ultimately responsible for their changes in behavior with this new dual-targeting strategy. Understanding mechanism of action is fundamentally important for any effective drug development study.”
Andrea Candelli, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of LUMICKS, commented: “This innovative new work, highlighting LUMICKS’ z-Movi as a critical tool to enable CAR-T developers to precisely understand fundamental principles of therapy design, is both exciting and important. This is the first step in our mission to demonstrate and validate the power of cell avidity as the biomarker for immuno-oncology research and development.”
Lina Adams
