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Spring 2024
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Synopsis

Cancer-fighting boot camp

Scientists at the University of Minnesota are getting immune cells into tumor-fighting shape

By Justin Harris
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Branden Moriarity, PhD, might technically be a cancer biologist, but in some ways, he’s the most life-changing boot camp instructor you’ve ever met.

Moriarity, an associate professor of pediatric hematology and oncology at the University of Minnesota Medical School, spends his days helping ill-equipped immune cells get into shape to fight back against cancer.

His method of choice? A type of cancer treatment known as adoptive cell therapy.

Adoptive cell therapy is centered on the idea of beefing up the body’s existing immune cells in just the right way so that they’re able to kill cancer cells more effectively.

“We take immune cells from a patient or a healthy donor and then we engineer them to better attack cancer,” Moriarity explains.

Adoptive cell therapy is a type of immunotherapy that is reshaping the field of cancer care and giving more people a chance at a cure. Moriarity and his team are exploring several kinds of adoptive cell therapies—including chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy, T-cell receptor (TCR) therapy, and natural killer (NK) cell therapy—that have shown promise in treating even the most aggressive forms of cancer.

Using leading-edge gene editing tools like CRISPR, Moriarity and company are able to activate, strengthen, or multiply a person’s existing immune cells and then redeploy them for maximum anticancer effect. 

Fueled by philanthropic support, including from the Brave Like Gabe Foundation and the Randy Shaver Cancer Research and Community Fund, the team has launched several clinical trials assessing various forms of adoptive cell therapy. Moriarity says the potential of these treatments cannot be overstated.

Make a gift to support the Moriarity Lab’s research and discovery.

“It has cured people of cancer who otherwise should not have lived,” he says. “These are highly metastatic patients who have exhausted every other treatment option, and these adoptive cell therapies have come in and actually cured them.”

Check out the process below.

ILLUSTRATION BY LISA HAINES

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1

RECRUITMENT
Adoptive cell therapy begins by removing a patient’s immune cells (T cells or NK cells), either from their blood or from within a tumor.

2

TRAINING
Scientists take the immune cells back to the lab, where they train them to fight back against cancer.

3

TRAINING
In CAR therapy, scientists give immune cells (T cells or NK cells) the genetic instructions they need to create the CAR protein. CAR proteins allow immune cells to track down and destroy cancer. CAR T-cell therapy is often used to treat lymphomas and other cancers of the blood.

4

TRAINING
Similarly, in T cell receptor therapy, T cells are extracted and given instructions to make seek-and-destroy proteins that are specific to a person’s cancer. This type of therapy has shown promise for treating solid tumor cancers.

5

TRAINING
In tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy, the T cells in a person’s body are already capable of killing cancer cells—there just aren’t enough of them to finish the job. In this scenario, researchers extract T cells that are on the front lines of the cancer fight—literally in the tumor—and then multiply them by the millions.

6

DEPLOYMENT
Once the immune cells level up in the lab, they are infused back into the body, better equipped to take on cancer.

7

DEPLOYMENT
T cells and NK cells armed with the CAR or other tumor-specific proteins are now able to find cancer cells, latch onto them, and destroy them. Or, in the case of tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy, millions of lab-engineered T cell reinforcements enter the fray to help take down tumors.

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