Results from a preclinical study in mice, led by EPFL, and a collaborative clinical study in patients show that the type 2 immune response – associ

Unexpected immune response may hold key to long-term cancer remission

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2024-09-27 10:00:10

Results from a preclinical study in mice, led by EPFL, and a collaborative clinical study in patients show that the type 2 immune response – associated with parasitic infection and thought to play a negative role in cancer immunity – is positively correlated with long-term cancer remission.

In 2012, 7-year-old Emily Whitehead became the first pediatric patient to receive pioneering chimeric antigen receptor (CAR-T) therapy to fight the recurrence of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Twelve years later, Emily is in remission and a student at the University of Pennsylvania, where the therapy was developed. But for many others, the fight continues: more than half of ALL patients experience a relapse within one year following CAR-T therapy.

Now, samples from the same pioneering clinical trials have been used in a new study, recently published in Nature in collaboration with EPFL, Yale University, University of Pennsylvania and Cleveland Clinic, that could again signal a paradigm shift in cancer treatment.