Improved method of engineering T-cells to attack cancer

Researchers at Cardiff University have found a way to boost the cancer-destroying ability of the immune system's T-cells, offering new hope in the fight against a wide range of cancers. Using CRISPR genome editing, the team took the genetic engineering of killer T-cells one step further by removing their non-cancer specific receptors and replacing them with ones that would recognise specific cancer cells and destroy them. Dr Mateusz Legut from Cardiff University, who led Since there is only limited 'space' on a cell for receptors, cancer-specific ones need to compete with the cell's own receptors to perform their function. More often than not, the cell's own receptors win that competition, and leave 'space' for only a very limited number of newly introduced, cancer-specific receptors, which means that T-cells engineered with the current technology never reach their full potential as cancer killers. "The T-cells we made using genome editing do not have any of their own T-cell receptors left, and therefore the only receptor they can use is the one specific for cancer. As a result, these cells can be a thousand times better at seeing and killing cancer than the cells prepared using the current methodology." T-cells are a part of the immune system that normally helps us fight off bacterial and viral infections, such as the flu virus. Some T-cells are also able to attack cancer cells.