David G. Maloney, MD, PhD, medical director of immunotherapy at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and member of Fred Hutchinson Research Center, discusses the clinical trials that are currently investigating chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells at the Bezos Family Immunotherapy Clinic at Fred Hutchinson.
There are 18 different clinical trials actively looking at CAR T cells in a variety of settings. In breast and lung cancers, Maloney says they are testing CAR T cells against ROR1, which is exciting. In multiple myeloma, multiple companies are involved in BCMA CAR T cells trials.
Maloney says it is important to understand how to make CD19 CAR T cells work better. Some trials aiming to do this are using humanized CAR T cells where single-chain variable fragment is a human antibody, while others are adding PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors. Maloney says this should make the CAR T cells less exhausted and more persistent.