IIT Bombay Breakthrough: Safer T-Cell Recovery for Cancer Immunotherapy

In immunotherapies such as CAR T-cell, T-cells (a type of immune cell) are taken from a patient's blood and modified in large numbers in the laboratory and infused back into the patient's bloodstream to help fight cancer.

These cells, grown outside the body, must be collected gently so that they remain alive and functional when returned to the patient. Finding safe and efficient ways to grow T-cells and retrieve them is therefore an important part of making these therapies work.

"Cell recovery sounds simple on paper, but in practice it turns out to be one of the biggest challenges," said Prof. Prakriti Tayalia, from the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering at the IIT Bombay

"Without enough healthy cells, you cannot test them properly or use them for therapy," she added.

To better mimic the body's natural environment, Tayalia's team worked with a specific type of scaffold made using a process called electrospinning. These electrospun scaffolds look like thin mats made of very fine fibres, similar to a dense fishing net.

The team grew Jurkat T-cells (a human cell line grown and used in the laboratory to study T-cell biology, cancer, and HIV) inside electrospun scaffolds made from a material called polycaprolactone.

Under a microscope, the researchers observed that the cells actively moved into the scaffold and became tightly lodged between the fibres.

Further, the research showed that collecting the cells using trypsin, an enzyme, led to higher cell death.

In contrast, cells recovered with accutase, a milder enzyme, survived in greater numbers and behaved more like healthy T-cells. They formed clusters, an essential step before T-cells divide, and continued to grow well after recovery.

"Harsh treatments to cells, using enzymes such as trypsin, can damage key surface proteins needed for immune signalling and activation, reducing the cell's therapeutic usefulness. Accutase appears mild enough to avoid this problem," Tayalia said.

The study's findings, published in the journal Biomaterials Science, could help laboratories use such scaffolds when preparing cells for therapies such as CAR T-cell treatment.

"If we want these advanced therapies to reach patients, every step matters. How we grow cells, and how we retrieve them, can make a real difference," Tayalia said.

- IANS