When they work, engineered immune cells called CAR T cells can beat back even advanced leukemias and lymphomas.
But there is a catch. The proteins they sniff out on cancerous cells can also appear on healthy B cells, which make infection-fighting antibodies. The CAR T cells can’t distinguish between friend and foe, so they destroy both.
That collateral damage may leave patients vulnerable to infection. No B cells means no protective antibodies — tiny Y-shaped proteins that neutralize bacteria and viruses.
The long-term effects of CAR T-cell therapy on this key part of the immune system are poorly understood, said Dr. Joshua Hill, an infectious diseases specialist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. And no data exist to guide efforts at preventing infections in these high-risk patients.
Hill plans to change that. He will use a new five-year, $3.3 million grant from the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Moonshot program to study the holes this immunotherapy leaves in patients’ defenses against infection — and how doctors can fill them. Hill will lead an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Fred Hutch and Seattle Children’s focused on CAR T-cell therapies used to treat blood cancers.
