Human papilloma virus –specific T cells can be generated from naïve T cells for use as an immunotherapeutic strategy for immunocompromised patients

Publication date: Available online 10 January 2018 Source:Cytotherapy Author(s): Sarah E. McCormack, Conrad Russell Y. Cruz, Kaylor E. Wright, Allison B. Powell, Haili Lang, Cornelia Trimble, Michael D. Keller, Ephraim Fuchs, Catherine M. Bollard Human papilloma virus (HPV) is a known cause of cervical cancer, squamous cell carcinoma and laryngeal cancer. Although treatments exist for HPV-associated malignancies, patients unresponsive to these therapies have a poor prognosis. Recent findings from vaccine studies suggest that T-cell immunity is essential for disease control. Because Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV)-specific T cells have been highly successful in treating or preventing EBV-associated tumors, we hypothesized that the development of a manufacturing platform for HPV-specific T cells from healthy donors could be used in a third-party setting to treat patients with high-risk/relapsed HPV-associated cancers. Most protocols for generating virus-specific T cells require prior exposure of the donor to the targeted virus and, because the seroprevalence of high-risk HPV types varies greatly by age and ethnicity, manufacturing of donor-derived HPV-specific T cells has proven challenging. We, therefore, made systematic changes to our current Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP)-compliant protocols to improve antigen presentation, priming and expansion for the manufacture of high-efficacy HPV-specific T cells. Like others, we found that current methodologies fail to expand H...
Source: Cytotherapy - Category: Cytology Source Type: research