Secretion of GD2-CD3 BiTEs from B7H3 CAR T-Cells Enhances their Anti-Tumor Activity in Pediatric High-Grade Gliomas

Brain tumors cause more death and disability than any other pediatric cancer. The past 5 decades have yielded minimal progress in curing the most aggressive brain tumors known as high grade gliomas. Immunotherapy is an exciting and developing approach that harnesses patients’ own immune systems to fight their cancer. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is a type of immunotherapy that involves training one’s immune cells to specifically target cancer cells. While this has been successful in a variety of cancers, current CAR T-cell versions have only been able to temporarily delay brain tumor worsening–not cure them. One reason is the environment surrounding the tumor manipulates the immune system to ignore and even protect the tumor. Dr. Asgharzadeh, Dr. Goldberg, and colleagues have engineered novel CAR T-cells that not only kill tumor cells but also produce signals to recruit immune cells against the tumor. Their goal is to test and improve this design in mouse models in hopes of developing an effective treatment for pediatric high-grade gliomas in humans.