A Promising Treatment Modality For Cancer - 2056 Words

Immunotherapy is a promising treatment modality for cancer as it can promote specific and durable anti-cancer responses. Systemic adoptive cell therapy (ACT) is an emerging form of cancer immunotherapy showing tremendous potential in clinical studies aimed at treating solid cancers. The success of promising anti-cancer adoptive cell therapies relies on the abilities of the perfused CD8+ T lymphocytes to gain access to and persist within the tumor microenvironment to carry out their cytotoxic functions. The success of cancer adoptive cell therapies depends on the expansion of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) from patient derived tumors for their personalized systemic infusion back into individual patients, along with the capacity of†¦show more content†¦Hypotheses: The implantation of 3D T cell cultures will provide a means for conveyance of a continuous feed of these cells towards the reduction of tumor burden or of tumor reoccurrence near the site of tumor resection. To that end, the molecular architecture of the scaffold must permit the expansion and release of functional T cells whose activation state can be affected by the surrounding conditions, allowing activating and chemo attractant signatures from the tumor microenvironment to accelerate the proliferation, escape, and immunogenicity of the encapsulated cells. It must also allow its precise, local administration in a minimally invasive way (through catheter or needle), its jellifying ahead of its dispersion, and must provide it with the ability to withstand in vivo stress and degradation for the duration of treatment. Aim: The aim of this research is to develop a new method for local injection of concentrated, three dimensional (3D) TIL (tumor infiltrating lymphocytes) cultures into the tumor microenvironment akin to adjuvant postoperative radiation therapy currently applied to cavities formed from tumor resection in cases of advanced tumor stage and margin positivity, and also with the intent to mimic naturally occurring tertiary lymphoid structures associated to positive patient prognosis. In this study,