Dr. Brentjens Discusses the Goal of Armored CAR T Cells

Renier Brentjens, MD, PhD, associate professor, chief, Cellular Therapeutics Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the goal of armored chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells.

Patients who relapse after treatment with CAR T-cell therapy often no longer express the original target, which is referred to as immune escape. Brentjens says that armored CAR T cells are being developed to overcome the current limitations seen with CAR T-cell therapy. These CAR T cells are fortified with cytokines that can be pro-inflammatory, a co-stimulatory ligand, or an antibody that can block pathways such as PD-1 and PD-L1.

Brentjens says that approaches such as armored CAR T cells are the next step in the development of cellular therapies, as there are still many patients who will relapse on currently available CAR T-cell therapy. This is a step toward making the first iterations of CAR T-cell therapies even better, he adds.