Funded by the Constellation Gold Network Distributors in honor of the Dick Vitale Fund
Scientists have given immune cells a detector for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). They called these cells CAR T cells. In some patients, these CAR T cells disappear before they can clear the tumor. In others, these cells become too exhausted to work. We have recently identified the molecular code that prevents T cells from dying off or becoming exhausted. With the funding support, we will use this molecular code to make CAR T cells stay in cancer patients longer and clear B-cell ALL more effectively. We hope to use this strategy to cure a much larger population of pediatric cancer patients with B-cell ALL.
