Adoptive immuno-gene therapy of cancer with single chain antibody [scFv(Ig)] gene modified T lymphocytes

C H J Lamers1, S Sleijfer, R A Willemsen

  • 1Department of Medical Oncology, Erasmus MC--Daniel den Hoed Cancer Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. c.lamers@erasmusmc.nl

Adoptive transfer of antigen-specific T cells has recently shown therapeutic successes in the treatment of viral infections and tumors. T cells specific for the antigen of interest can be generated in vitro, and adoptively transferred back to provide patients with large numbers of immune-competent T cells. Adoptive T cell therapy, however, is a patient-tailored treatment that unfortunately is not universally applicable to treat viral infections and tumors. We and others have demonstrated that the transfer of genes encoding antigen-specific receptors into T cells (i.e., genetic retargeting) represents an attractive alternative to induce antigen-specific immunity. Currently, we evaluate this concept in a clinical protocol to treat patients with metastatic renal cell cancer (RCC) using autologous RCC-specific gene-modified T lymphocytes.

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