Clinical Trials Set for Cancer Fighting Therapy With Broad Applications

Chimeric antigen receptor may be able to treat a number of cancer types.

Researchers are planning to evaluate a potentially significant new treatment for a broad range of cancers.

A treatment utilizing the cancer fighting chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells, which were developed at the Dartmouth Norris Cotton Cancer Center, are set to begin a phase 1 clinical trial early this year. Previous research has suggested that CAR therapies may be applicable for the treatment of many different cancers.

The therapy was found to be able to not just eliminate tumors from animals, but also prevent recurrence of the disease. The first CAR therapy to advance to a clinical trial is called CM-CS1.

The treatment is an autologous CAR T-cell therapy utilizing NKG2D, which is a cell receptor engineered to target ligands that are present on most types of tumors, including both hematologic cancers and solid tumors.

These targets are expressed across many different cancer types, including pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, and prostate cancer. For the current clinical trial, CAR will be evaluated for the treatment of hematologic cancers, such as leukemia and myeloma.

"We are very excited about the opportunity to move these novel therapies into the clinic," lead researcher Charles Sentman, PhD, said in a press release. "It is an exciting time in cancer immunotherapy, and the potential of CAR cell therapies holds great promise to improve patients' health."