CAR-NKT cell therapy (NKT) is capable of precision targeting when equipped with CAR.

The UCLA study’s co-senior author, Dr. Lili Yang stated that personalized immunotherapies in use today may cost thousands of dollars, according to UCLA Newsroom.  Whereas a new off-the-shelf therapy developed by the UCLA team is now available.  It is more affordable and more accessible.

The process involves a patient’s immune cells which can become cancer fighting weapons. After working for a decade to find a solution, the research team met these challenges by developing its CAR-NKT cell therapy that captures a powerful type of immune cell called natural killer T cells (NKT cells).

These potent tumor-fighting cells have precision-targeting capability when combined with a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR).

Charlie Li, first author and a member of UCLA’s training program, describes cancer as a moving target which requires attacks from many sources simultaneously. That is what CAR-NKT is designed to do.

CAR-T identifies one target and CAR-NKT recognizes a wide range of markers making it difficult for the cancer cells to escape.

It is a multi-targeted approach. The cancer cells are blocked from building new defenses.  In addition, CAR-NKT cells are more efficient at penetrating the barrier that shields ovarian tumors from standard CAR-T cells.

The CAR-NKT approach addresses the problems through varied manufacturing methods. NKT cells work with any immune system thereby eliminating the need for production that is patient specific.

The Strategy

Professor Yang’s team has created a strategy whereby the cells can be mass-produced from donated blood stem cells. One donation can produce a sufficient number of cells to accommodate thousands of treatments thereby lowering the cost to almost $5,000 for each dose.

The Vision

Professor Yang outlined the vision which is to create CAR-NKT cells for hospitals in the United States and throughout the world making them available when patients need them.