Certain types of lymphoma, such as the indolent B cell lymphomas and mantle cell lymphoma, are incurable with standard therapies.  These diseases can, however, be cured using stem cell transplantation, in which immune T cells from the donor kill lymphoma cells.  This procedure unfortunately carries the serious risk of graft-versus-host disease, which can be life-threatening.

In order to provide safer therapy options, Dr. Till [Damon Runyon-Pfizer Clinical Investigator] aims to develop a new treatment for lymphoma using patients’ own T cells to fight their cancers: patient cells are collected, a gene is inserted into the cells that allows them to recognize and kill lymphoma cells, and then the cells are infused back into the patient.  He is leading a phase I clinical trial testing this treatment in lymphoma patients.  He is optimistic that this strategy will translate into a safe, curative treatment for patients with lymphoma; insights from this work may help to advance similar treatments for other types of cancer.

 

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Project Title: "Optimization of adoptive immunotherapy for lymphoma using genetically modified CD20-specific T cells"

Institution: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Sponsor(s) / Mentor(s): Oliver W. Press, MD, PhD

Cancer Type: Lymphomas

Research Area: Immunotherapy