CAR-T cell therapies are transforming the treatment of previously incurable blood cancers, but a large proportion of patients still responds only poorly or not at all to them, calling for new strategies to overcome this challenge. Now, a research team has developed a simple intervention in the form of a biodegradable scaffold material called T-cell enhancing scaffolds (TES) that can be locally injected under the skin and used to restimulate CAR-T cells after their administration. This increased their therapeutic efficacy and significantly curbed tumor growth and prolonged animal survival in an aggressive mouse lymphoma model.
Boston
Massachusetts
United-states
Miguel-sobral
Robertp-pinkas
Yoav-binenbaum
Yutong-liu
Donald-ingber
Dave-mooney
David-mooney
David-zhang
Joshua-brockman
<p>Hydrogels are already used in clinical practice for the delivery of drugs, and as lenses, bone cement, wound dressings, 3D scaffolds in tissue engineering and other applications. However, bonding different hydrogel polymers to one another has remained a challenge; yet it could enable numerous new applications. Now, Harvard Wyss and SEAS researchers pioneered a new method that uses a thin film of chitosan, a fibrous sugar-based material derived from the processed outer skeletons of shellfish, to make different hydrogels instantaneously and strongly stick to each other. They used their approach to locally protect and cool tissues, seal vascular injuries, and prevent unwanted “surgical adhesions” of internal body surfaces. </p>
University-of-massachusetts-medical-school
Massachusetts
United-states
Berlin
Germany
Massachusetts-institute-of-technology
Spaulding-rehabilitation-hospital
Tufts-university
Boston-university
Boston
Dave-mooney
Juan-cintron-cruz