One form of adoptive T cell therapy (ACT) consists of harvesting tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL), screening and isolating TIL which display tumor antigen-specific T-cell receptors (TCR), expanding the isolated T cells in vitro, and reinfusing them into the patient for treatment. While highly active in the treatment of certain cancers (e.g., melanoma), current methods used to produce cancer-reactive T cells require significant time and may not adequately identify the desired TCRs which bind cancer targets.
Researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Surgery Branch have developed a method which allows for the identification of TCRs from bulk populations of TIL. This method generates induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines inheriting tumor antigen-specific TCRs from minor populations of TIL, not routinely achievable by other conventional approaches. Additionally, the method can generate previously unidentified tumor antigen-specific iPSC lines without pre-generating tumor antigen-specific T cell lines. This novel method is an improvement in the generation of tumor antigen-specific TCR inherited iPSC lines.
NCI seeks proposals from parties interested in licensing this improved method for the development of cancer immunotherapies.