Rapid restoration of immunity in immune-suppressed cancer patients using T-cel...( up received the pneumococcal vaccine be...),Health

up received the pneumococcal vaccine before transplantation and chemotherapy, but received the T-cell vaccine three months after their transplant and chemotherapy. The last pair of groups did not get the initial pneumococcal vaccine before the standard transplant and chemotherapy, but did receive the T-cell vaccine immediately after or three months after the standard treatment.

The researchers found that the patients in the group that received the early pneumococcal vaccine plus the early T-cell vaccine infusion had an immune response that was protective and higher than often achieved in normal patients who do not have cancer.

Custom-Designed T-Cell Therapies Will Enhance Immunity
At the recently opened Clinical Cell and Vaccine Production Facility at Penn, "we have been using new cell-based custom therapeutics derived from a patient's own T cells in this and other studies, with the long term goal of improving outcome and extending life," explains co-author Bruce Levine, PhD, who directs the Facility. T-cells are taken from a patient and expanded about a thousand fold. The engineered T-cells are then given back to the patient a few weeks later via an infusion. The newly grown T cells continue to grow in the patient, which is different than a red blood cell transfusion. The effect of this therapy is to quickly repopulate a patient's immune system with mature cells that can support immunity against infections, and potentially against tumors.

"This study showed how to take a vaccine that is a failure in people after chemotherapy and to modify it so that it works in cancer patients after chemotherapy," says June. "The surprising thing is that the vaccine works better than normal in many of the patients. This is the first step in developing a new form of personalized therapy for the treatment of cancer, where engineered T-cells will be used to boost the immune system, essentially priming it to make cancer vaccines work better."
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Contact: Karen Kreeger
karen.kreeger@uphs.upenn.edu
215-349-5658
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
20-Oct-2005

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