19 Jan Innovating new T-cell therapies
Steve Larson is a fighter.
When the Iowa City man was diagnosed with stage IV esophageal cancer in March 2021, he knew he wanted to do anything he could to have more time with his family and loved ones.
“I’ve had a good life, but then why not keep it going if you can?” said Larson, 73.
After completing difficult bouts of chemotherapy, Larson contacted the UW Health | Carbone Cancer Center to see which clinical trials he could explore.
Larson recently became the first patient in a phase II clinical trial that uses a modified T-cell therapy in the hopes of creating an immune system response to fight cancer. This is also the first time at UW Carbone that T-cell therapy has been used on a solid tumor patient.
Dr. Nataliya Uboha, who is leading this trial, is excited for the new research possibilities opened up by this trial.
“It really is one of the most exciting areas of research in solid tumors,” Uboha said of T-cell therapy. “We have used this type of technology to treat liquid tumors, like lymphomas, leukemias, hematologic malignancies for a while, but these treatments haven’t crossed over into the solid tumor space until the last few years.”
Cancer spreads because tumor cells evade the body’s natural immune response. T-cells are a type of white blood cell that attack abnormal and infected cells. T-cell therapy uses genetically engineered T-cells designed to recognize, bind to, and kill cancer cells. Read more …