Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has shown great promise in the treatment of certain leukemias and lymphoma, but results in solid tumors have not been as impressive.
The poor efficacy of CAR T cells in solid tumors is in part due to the lack of suitable cancer-associated antigens. Gates Institute member Joshua Thurman, MD, a professor in the division of renal diseases and hypertension in the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine, and his team have found that the immune system tags tumor cells with a novel molecule, which could lead the way to creating a CAR to target solid tumors. He was recently awarded Gates Grubstake funding to continue this research.