EBMT 2017 | Improving T-cell therapy with antigen specific T-cells

Catherine Bollard, MBChB, MD, FRACP, FRCPA, from the Children’s Research Institute, Washington, DC, speaks about improving T-cell therapy at the 2017 annual meeting of the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) in Marseille, France. She focuses on antigen-specific T-cells beyond the chimeric antigen receptor technology. Dr Bollard explains that by stimulating antigen specific T-cells in vitro to administer to patients after allogeneic stem cell transplant, relapse can be treated or prevented. She discusses a new study, which generated T-cells from healthy donors which target three tumor-associated antigens, survivin, PRAME, and WT1, which are then administered to patients with relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), acute myeloid leukemia (AML), or Hodgkin lymphoma after allogeneic stem cell transplant. Dr Bollard explains that 10 patients were treated in this first in man study, and a response rate (RR) of 75% has been seen in some of the highest risk poor prognosis patients. The clinical implications of this is that it will enhance the stem cell transplant platform. She speaks about her collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, which aims to use these novel antigen specific T-cells early after haploidentical stem cell transplant to prevent relapse in these high-risk patients.