Researchers have uncovered a new important clue to better immunotherapy for blood cancers such as leukemia, myeloma, and lymphoma.

T cell-engaging bispecific therapy, a novel form of immunotherapy, is showing promising results in clinical trials for the treatment of blood malignancies.

It works like a missile control system by telling and directing the body’s own T cells to attack and kill blood cancer cells.

But it’s still not clear how exactly this process works, and figuring out how it works scientifically is important for developing and improving the treatment to get better long-term results.

Now, research led by Dr. Kyohei Nakamura, a cancer immunologist at QIMR Berghofer, has found that a type of cell called iNKT cells, which is not very common, is like the key that turns on the missile control system and tells the T cells to kill the cancer cells.

The immunotherapy is markedly more effective by increasing the amount of these iNKT cells.

The discovery, according to Dr. Nakamura, Head of QIMR Berghofer’s Immune Targeting in Blood Cancers Laboratory, represents a significant advance in the fight against blood cancers.

“Until now, iNKT cells have been underestimated. Our research for the first time shows,” says Dr. Nakamura, “how important these iNKT cells are and their critical role in boosting the efficacy of the T cell engaging bispecific therapy. We believe that this study fills in the gaps in our understanding of how the immune system is working during this therapy.”

The Leukaemia Foundation says that 53 Australians are diagnosed with blood cancer every day. Blood cancers are the second most common type of cancer in the country as a whole.

The complex set of disorders known as blood cancers are connected by abnormalities in the blood cells that have an impact on blood production and function.

Mika Casey, the lead author of this new study and a researcher at QIMR Berghofer, said that there aren’t many iNKT cells in the body, and the number is even lower in cancer patients. However, their production can be boosted with a simple vaccine.

“These iNKT cells are powerful but also they are quite rare in number. Boosting the numbers of these iNKT cells has been shown to be effective and safe in patients with multiple myeloma. We hope this approach could be a new fundamental strategy for T cell engaging bispecific therapy.

The next stage, according to Ms. Casey, is to put these discoveries into clinical trials.

“T cell engaging bispecific therapy is an off-the-shelf way that we can direct a patient’s own immune system to kill myeloma and other cancer cells,” adds Professor Simon Harrison, a haematologist and the director of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Center’s Center of Excellence in Cellular Immunotherapy, who collaborated on the study.

“This research increases our fundamental understanding of how T cell engaging bispecific therapy works and gives us a potential path to increase its effectiveness. We are working together to translate these findings into more effective therapies for patients.”

Image Credit: Getty

You were reading: Now We Can Direct The Immune System To Kill Blood Cancer Cells – New Study Shows How