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High-performance Multiplex Drug-gated CAR Circuits
Boston University
Antibody
Oncology
Hit To Lead or Lead Optimization
Abstract
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell immunotherapy has the potential to revolutionize cancer medicine, but excessive CAR activation has limited the safety and efficacy of CAR T cell therapy. A CAR system that is regulated by safe, clinically approved pharmaceutical agents is urgently needed.
Boston University
researchers have developed a clinically relevant innovative CAR system
comprising a diverse set of inducible ON and OFF switch CAR circuits that can
be regulated by multiple FDA-approved antiviral protease inhibitors, including
grazoprevir (GZV). The schematic on the right depicts an OFF-switch circuit.
Benefits
• Improved safety - reversibly controllable by safe, clinically-approved pharmaceutical agents
• Dynamic, tunable set of single- and advanced dual-gated CAR circuits
• Dual-gated circuits targeting multiple antigens to improve specificity or mitigate antigen escape
• CAR activity
established in vitro and in a xenograft tumor model
Market Applications
• Cancer immune therapies
• Cell-based therapies for:
• Infectious diseases
• Autoimmunity
• Alloimmunity
• Fungal infection
John Ngo, Wilson Wong
US 11059864 B2 (2021.07.13)
Patent Family: US, EP, CA, AU
"Engineering clinically-approved drug gated CAR circuits." Li et al. Cancer Cell. 2022 Nov 14;40(11):1294-1305.e4.
