Cell Cannibalism

Cell Cannibalism

The most exciting recent advances in cancer therapy are immunotherapies, including CAR-T. In CAR-T, a patient’s T cells are extracted, programmed to express a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) that binds a tumor antigen, and reinfused to enhance anti-tumor responses. CAR-T works extremely well, but in a minority of patients. CAR-P is a new approach using phagocytes in place of T cells because macrophages penetrate tumors better than T cells do. A limitation however is that CAR macrophages frequently nibble rather than engulf and kill target tumor cells. We have discovered how to engineer macrophages to be hyperactive for engulfment and are working to harness this approach for cancer immunotherapy. We are also testing the hypothesis that this mechanism explains a rare genetic immunodeficiency.

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