2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

The role of tumor microenvironment in CAR-T cell therapy for solid tumor

Research Project

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Project/Area Number	20K17634
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Review Section	Basic Section 55020:Digestive surgery-related
Research Institution	Osaka International Cancer Institute
Principal Investigator	Ogawa Hisataka 地方独立行政法人大阪府立病院機構大阪国際がんセンター(研究所), その他部局等, Nitto核酸創薬共同研究部主任研究員 (20621022)
Project Period (FY)	2020-04-01 – 2022-03-31
Keywords	膵臓がん / CAR-T細胞療法 / CD44v6 / がん微小環境
Outline of Final Research Achievements	CAR-T cell therapy is now being developed as a new cancer treatment for refractory cancers. CAR-T cell can behave like living drugs because CAR-T cell can bind to and lyse the cancer cells expressing its specific surface antigen in tumor, while stimulated to grow in the body. We have experienced a remarkable success of CAR-T cell therapy in the field of blood cancer, but still under development for solid tumor. We suppose resistance to CAR-T cell therapy of solid tumor can be caused by tumor microenvironment, which is characteristic of solid tumor.
Free Research Field	がん免疫療法
Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements	固形がんの中でも膵臓がんはその予後が数十年に渡り改善されていない難治性がんの代表である。既存の治療法に抵抗性を示す膵臓がんに対して、本研究で開発するCAR-T細胞療法は新規治療法となり得る可能性がある。現在のところ、膵臓がんに有効なCAR-T細胞療法は開発されていないが、膵臓がんに特徴的ながん微小環境に着目して開発されるCAR-T細胞療法は膵臓がんに有効なものとなり得ると考えている。