ICLE 2022 | Is WT1 a promising candidate peptide for TCR-based immunotherapies?
T cell receptor (TCR)–modified T cell therapies show clinical potential for the treatment of different cancers however a key challenge is the identification of optimal target antigens. Chiara Bonini, MD, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University & IRCCS San Raffaele Institute, Milan, Italy, highlights Wilms’ tumor antigen 1 (WT1) as a candidate peptide for TCR-based cancer therapies, which is immunogenic, widely expressed by many tumors and important for blast cell survival. She describes the identification of a WT1-specific TCR with high avidity that is naturally processed by acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells and has the ability to recognize human leukocyte antigen class II (HLA-II) peptides. T cells engineered to express this TCR are being advanced into clinical development for AML immunotherapy. This interview took place at the International Conference on Lymphocyte Engineering (ICLE) 2022.
