New immunotherapy helps immune system cells detect and kill deadly brain cancer cells, glioblastoma

Researchers at Tel Aviv University, led by Dr. Dinorah Friedmann-Morvinski of the School of Neurobiology, Biochemistry and Biophysics from the Faculty of Life Sciences and the Sagol School of Neuroscience, used a technique based on immunotherapy to fight a deadly brain cancer, Glioblastoma. In this study, T cells from the immune system were engineered in a way that allows them to specifically and effectively detect and eliminate cancer cells. The researchers believe this new development may also help patients with other types of tumors in the brain, and even other solid tumors in the body.

This study was conducted by Dr. Liat Rousso Noori and Ignacio Mastandrea, along with collaborators from Prof. Zelig Eshhar’s lab from the Weizmann Institute of Science and Tel Aviv Souraski Medical Center as well as researches from Estonia and Spain. The study was published in Nature Communications on June 2021.

"The treatment we have developed is effective"

The breakthrough that led to this study started with the finding that glioblastoma cells express on their surface a unique protein called p32 which is not expressed on the surface of healthy cells - and can therefore be used as a flag for specific detection. Moreover, it turned out that p32 also appears on the surface of a variety of other types of tumors, as well as in the blood vessels that the tumor produces itself for the regular supply of oxygen and nutrients, but not in healthy blood vessels. This means that T cells engineered with the CAR-T technology, specific for p32 molecule, will target only the cancer cells, and the blood vessels of the tumor, and will not harm the healthy cells. This novel specific p32 CART was first checked against cancer cells in culture dishes and then was given as treatment to glioblastoma tumor bearing mice (a mouse model of the disease), which resulted in 60% increase in their lifespan.

The researchers conclude: "Our study has shown that the treatment we have developed is effective: in the early stages after receiving the engineered T cells, the tumors become smaller and the mice live for a significantly longer period of time. While this treatment does not give a complete answer to glioblastoma patients, these days we are exploring several options to combine it with additional strategies in order to produce a more comprehensive and effective treatment. We emphasize that since there is currently no single treatment that can cure this type of cancer, we believe that the treatment we have developed can be a significant component in future treatments that will consist of a combination of different elements. Furthermore, our treatment may be suitable for solid tumors of various types, both in the brain and in other organs in the body, which according to our study also express the p32 protein. By doing so, it could help millions of cancer patients around the world."