April 26, 2017 (Medical News Today)
Cellular therapy hasn’t had much success in fighting solid tumors, partly because it’s been difficult to deliver anti-cancer T cells to the tumors.
A strategy developed by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center could help. The team equipped a synthetic scaffold loaded with cancer-fighting T cells and a mix of nutrients to keep the cells healthy and primed to attack cancer.
The study, published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, revealed that the scaffold loaded with T cells shrank tumors in mouse models of pancreatic cancer and melanoma more effectively than T cells that were delivered via injection.
“The key to our scaffold is that it’s not just a structure,” said Fred Hutch’s Dr. Matthias Stephan, the study’s senior author and an expert in developing biomaterials. “The components we’ve engineered into these scaffolds include an optimal mix of stimulating factors and other ingredients that allow the T cells to survive and proliferate and to maintain a sustained fight against cancerous cells.”
Read more at Medical News Today.
