More often associated with the treatment of cancer, immunotherapy could also be used to treat infectious diseases, suggested a team from Duke-NUS.
In a commentary published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine today, Professor Antonio Bertoletti and Senior Research Fellow Dr Anthony Tanoto Tan from Duke-NUS’ Emerging Infectious Diseases Programme made the case that T cells could be extracted and engineered to recognise a viral threat before being reinjected into the blood stream.
These engineered T cells were fitted with either artificially recreated receptors called chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) or naturally occurring ones called T-cell receptors (TCRs) that recognise cells infected either by a specific cancer or virus.
Their observations could also have implications for the newly declared pandemic.
“We demonstrated previously that T cells can be redirected to target the coronavirus responsible for SARS,” said Bertoletti at the time.
“Our team has now begun exploring the potential of CAR/TCR T-cell immunotherapy for controlling the COVID-19-causing virus, SARS-CoV-2, and protecting patients from its symptomatic effects,” Bertoletti would go on to say in a media statement issued by the School on the commentary.
The Bertoletti lab had been studying this method to treat chronic hepatitis B infections and hepatitis B-related liver cancer. The scientific concept was licensed to local biotech start-up, Lion TCR, which brought it to the clinical trial stage in 2018 for liver cancer patients whose cancer had recurred even after transplant.
“This commentary was largely written before the pandemic, but some aspects turned out to be pretty predictive of what was to come,” reflects Bertoletti. “For example, we have since gone on to develop SARS-CoV-2 TCR-redirected T cells and are testing the possibility of using this strategy to treat immunocompromised patients with COVID-19.”