The immune system has an exquisite ability to identify and eradicate abnormal cells in our bodies while protecting healthy cells around them. Cancers can also be seen as abnormal cells by the immune system and, as such, can be targeted by immune responses. However, as cancers develop, they are able to utilise a variety of different approaches to hide from the immune system to continue to grow and spread to distant sites in the body without restriction.
Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR)-T cell immunotherapy ‘living therapies’ represent an exciting new era for the immunotherapy of cancer. CAR-T cells are a form of cellular immunotherapy in which a patient’s natural protective immune cells (T-cells) are genetically engineered outside of the patient within the laboratory to express receptors on their surface ‘CARs’ which enable these cells to identify tumour cells and ‘see’ the cancer. Armies of these tumour killing immune cells can then be expanded before re-introducing back to the patient to find and attack the cancer, which these T-cells previously failed to do.