A new wave of therapies is unleashing the body’s immune system on cancer, significantly extending lives. These agents, however, don’t work for everyone, so scientists are exploring new approaches that might enable immunotherapies to more effectively combat tumors.
One idea, born of a team of bioengineers, involves loading baby-aspirin-sized scaffolds with immunotherapy agents and inserting them near tumors. These biodegradable scaffolds can potentially serve as “boot camps” for immune cells, recruiting and training them to recognize tumors and launch an attack. Novartis recently entered a licensing agreement with Harvard University and initiated a collaboration with the Wyss Institute at Harvard University and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the US to explore the potential applications of this technology.
“The goal is to reprogram the immune landscape of tumors,” says Glenn Dranoff, Head of Immuno-oncology at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. “The scaffolds provide a site where key immune cells can mingle with compounds that we’ve selected to educate them.”
Like newly enlisted members of the military, immune cells have the potential to fight the enemy, but they often lack the training. These cells could benefit from being temporarily sequestered in a site devoted to their education. Prolonged exposure to multiple immunotherapy agents might give them an advantage in battle, enabling them to fight harder than cells that encounter such agents in a haphazard fashion.
Source: Novartis
