Advancing towards safer and more precise treatments for solid tumours using modified immune cells

Joan Seoane

Fundació privada Institut Investigació Oncologica Vall Hebron (VHIO), Barcelona, Spain

Many people with cancer have experienced important improvements due to therapies that use their own immune cells to fight the disease. While these treatments have shown great results in cancers of the blood, they still face serious challenges for cancers that form solid masses in the body, such as those in the brain. These solid tumours can hide from the immune system or create protective barriers that make it very difficult for treatments to succeed.

This project is developing a new strategy to help immune cells find and attack these hidden cancer cells, while also making the treatment as safe as possible. The process begins by collecting a person’s immune cells and carefully changing them in the laboratory. The main goal is to help these cells better recognize and destroy cancer, and to provide them with a special system that controls when and where they release helpful substances. This system is designed, so these substances are only released inside the tumour, reducing the risk to healthy parts of the body.

This approach may make treatment much more effective for people with solid tumours, who often have limited options. At the same time, it helps lower the chance of dangerous side effects, since the helpful substances act exactly where they are most needed. The technology is flexible, so it can be adapted for many kinds of cancer and could also be used with other types of immune cell treatments in the future.

If this technology is successful, it may give new hope to people whose cancers have not responded to other therapies and could help them live longer and healthier lives.

Allowing adoptive T cell therapies in solid tumors

Stage 2