Event Information

Time：October 28, 2015 (Wednesday)
Place：TRPMA Conference Room

Dr. Lin Wei-Ting from the Tai Chen Stem Cell Center of the National Taiwan University was invited by TRPMA to give a speech on “Immunotherapy and Chimeric Antigen Receptor T cells (CART)” in the 5th lecture of the Cell Therapy Lectures jointly organized by TACT and TRPMA. Dr Lin firstly briefed the audience on the history of the development of cancer treatments. The treatments evolved from chemotherapy into target drugs, cell therapies and CART. The development has brought new hope to cancer patients.

The concept behind cancer immunotherapy is to use patient’s own immunity system to clear cancer cells. Dr Ling talked in detail about the types of immunotherapies and their mechanism, including vaccines, drugs and cell therapies. CART is a kind of cell therapy. It applies genetic engineering to modify patient’s T-cell so that it can identify and kill cancer cells. The most common adverse reaction of CART is Cytokine Releasing Syndrome. The first six months after treatment is critical. Researches show that minor quantity of CART can be detected in patients who pass the six-month benchmark without a relapse.

Anti-CD19 CART is, so far, the most mature CART product. There are many CART researches in progress in the world, focusing on different cancer cell antigens. Dr Lin stressed that CART has a difference mechanism for identifying cancer cell antigen. Therefore, there should be an innovative approach to the design of clinical trials and the formulation of regulations. It should take into account of the differences between CART and monoclonal antibodies. The position of epitope affects the treatment results of CART. Therefore, products with the same antigen may have different efficacy.

Dr Lin pointed out the directions for future development of CART, including enhancing the efficacy and persistence, reducing toxicity and increasing universality. He also addressed products competing with CART, such as TCR-modified T Cells, Bispecific Antibody, Camelids nanobody, etc. He mentioned the possibility of combining CART with monoclonal antibodies, small molecular drugs, cytokines, etc. in order to bring out the best effect. CART has a huge range of applications. It has attracted investment from many scientists and drug companies. However, its success depends on the breakthrough in regulations, quality control and manufacturing techniques.