(ANSA) - MILAN, AUGUST 11 - Arming the immune system to fight blood cancers.
In summary, this is the new experimental approach tested in the laboratory by the researchers of the Irccs San Raffale Hospital in Milan and funded by Airc, which could represent a new immunotherapy strategy to combat leukemia.
The working group, coordinated by Giulia Casorati, head of the Institute's Experimental Immunology Unit, has identified a new therapeutic approach to treat blood cancers by engineering specific immune cells taken from healthy donors in the laboratory.
These are genetically modified T lymphocytes with a receptor, called Tcr, able to recognize the CD1c molecule, present on the cell surface and associated with a particular lipid antigen (mLPA), over-expressed in malignant cells. The novelty of the study is contained in the complex formed by CD1c with mLPA, a sort of key-lock mechanism, identical in all individuals: the identified Tcr is 'universal', that is, able to recognize the tumor cells of each patient, without barriers of histocompatibility between donor and recipient. The results obtained, for now only on experimental models of acute leukemia, show how the T lymphocytes modified to express the universal Tcr significantly delay the progression of the disease, without attacking the healthy tissues of the host.
The study was published in Nature Communications. "We are now investigating some important aspects that will improve the safety and efficacy of this technique - explained Giulia Casorati -. We hope to be able to define a new alternative immunotherapeutic strategy that can complement those already existing, to expand the options. to offer to patients who are experiencing relapses ". (HANDLE).