T cell activation

DDW Editor Reece Armstrong speaks to Christian Leisner, Chief Executive Officer of antibody therapeutics’ developer CDR-Life about methods to increase access to antigens and improving immunotherapy treatments. RA: Why are existing immunotherapies restricted to certain patient populations?  CL: Immunotherapies, principally anti-PD-1/-L1 checkpoint inhibitors, have shown therapeutic benefit in improving the prognosis of patients but only […]

Umoja Biopharma has revealed data from an ongoing non-human primate (NHP) study demonstrating effective, durable, and well tolerated in vivo chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell generation using the company’s VivoVec platform. The data include results from the first four NHPs treated in an ongoing study and demonstrate rapid and efficient in vivo generation of […]

Researchers from the Francis Crick Institute, King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in the UK have characterised a specialised type of immune cell, which plays a key role in protecting and repairing the cells in the healthy human gut. The researchers found that in healthy guts there was a specialised […]

The first quadruplex-edited, allogeneic CAR-T cell therapy candidate has entered clinical trials in the US. The first patient has been treated with Beam Therapeutics’ BEAM-201 as part of a Phase I/II clinical study for the treatment of relapsed/refractory T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia/T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma (T-ALL/T-LL). “As the first patient dosed with a Beam therapeutic candidate […]

Researchers have identified stem cells in the human thymus for the first time, representing a potential new target to understand immune diseases and cancer. The thymus is a gland located in the front part of the chest, the place where thymocytes (the cells in the thymus) mature into T cells. The thymus has a unique […]

Bayer subsidiary BlueRock Therapeutics, and bit.bio have announced a collaboration to discover and manufacture regulatory T cell (Treg) based therapies. Under the terms of the agreement, bit.bio will use its machine learning discovery platform to identify transcription factor (TF) combinations for reprogramming iPSCs into Tregs. The agreement also includes options for BlueRock to license bit.bio’s […]

Scientists from Japan have identified regulator CD69, which controls the differentiation of CD8+ T cells within tumour-draining lymph nodes, thereby regulating anti-tumour immunity. Future cancer treatment based on antibodies against CD69 could enhance anti-tumour immune responses of CD8+ T cells and lead to more efficient cancer therapies. CD8+ T cells have been the focal point […]

Janssen has presented new data from across its oncology pipeline at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago. Talquetamab Talquetamab is an investigational GPRC5D-directed bispecific antibody currently in clinical development. Updated results from the Phase II MonumenTAL-1 study show that with a median of 13-19 months of follow-up, talquetamab continues to […]

Discover the groundbreaking findings from a study on bispecific T cell engagers conducted by The Jackson Laboratory. This case study delves into the tools available for assessing cytokine release and tumour growth inhibition. Explore the implications of donor-specific responses and how this knowledge can optimise the development of immunomodulatory therapeutics. Download this Case Study to […]

Discover the groundbreaking findings from a study on bispecific T-cell engagers conducted by The Jackson Laboratory. This case study delves into the tools available for assessing cytokine release and tumour growth inhibition. Explore the implications of donor-specific responses and how this knowledge can optimise the development of immunomodulatory therapeutics. What you will learn: The correlation […]

New research in mice has identified how gut bacteria alter the body’s response to PD-1 checkpoint blockade immunotherapy, currently used for the treatment of 25 forms of cancer. The findings could inform the design of treatments that boost the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy among patients with suboptimal response. The research by investigators at Harvard Medical […]

Patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma who were treated with the two highest doses of REGN5459, a bispecific antibody targeting BCMA and CD3, experienced a 90.5% overall response rate. This is according to results of a Phase I/II clinical trial presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2023 in Florida. REGN5459 binds to BCMA on […]

Sonoma Biotherapeutics and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals have announced plans to collaborate on the discovery, development and commercialisation of novel regulatory T cell (Treg) therapies for autoimmune diseases. The collaboration will bring together Regeneron’s VelociSuite technologies for the discovery and characterisation of fully human antibodies and T cell receptors (TCRs) with Sonoma Biotherapeutics’ approach to developing and […]

New findings suggest that the SARS-CoV-2 virus damages an important immune-cell response. The quality of CD8+ T cell response to two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine was considerably lower in people with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection compared to people without prior infection, the US study found. In addition, the level of this T cell was […]

Scientists at the Francis Crick Institute have found that high consumption of a common artificial sweetener, sucralose, lowers activation of T cells in mice. If found to have similar effects in humans, one day it could be used therapeutically to help dampen T cell responses. For example, in patients with autoimmune diseases who suffer from […]

DDW’s Diana Spencer reports on the recent Avacta Therapeutics Science Day, which explored the latest exciting developments in precision and targeted treatments for cancer and asked what advances the future might bring. The Avacta Therapeutics Science Day brought together senior company scientists and international oncology experts to provide an overview of the current development of […]