Our Technology

Despite CAR T cell therapy’s significant success in treating hematological malignancies its effectiveness in treating solid tumors has been limited due to several challenges. These challenges include the difficulty in identifying a perfect target antigen in solid tumors, the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, tumor trafficking and infiltration, and the heterogeneity of tumor antigens. Solid tumors also display tumor-associated antigen (TAA) heterogeneity between tumor types and patients, making it challenging to design a CAR-T/NK cell with the capability of recognizing an ideal target antigen. Additionally, solid tumors have a surrounding ecosystem that hinders the effectiveness of CAR T/NK cells.  The combined tumor-associated antigen (TAA) heterogeneity and the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME), lead to T/NK cell exhaustion and limit the therapy’s success in solid cancers. 

Our research is continuing development of counterstrategies for CAR T cell therapy in solid tumors include various engineering strategies, combination therapies, and innovative approaches to overcome the limitations of this treatment modality. Some of the counterstrategies being explored are: 

Enhanced CAR NK-cell Engineering: Researchers are developing novel CAR designs that go beyond traditional architectures to enhance the safety, effectiveness, and applicability of CAR T/NK-cell therapy. This includes engineering strategies to improve CAR NK-cell function, such as increasing their ability to recognize target antigens, overcoming immunosuppressive signaling within the tumor microenvironment, and reducing toxicities. 

Combination Therapies: The use of several therapies in combination to optimize the clinical outcomes of CAR NK-cell therapy for solid tumors is being investigated. This includes exploring the potential of combining CAR NK-cell therapy with other treatment modalities, such as vaccines, targeted therapies, and immune checkpoint blockades, to improve the therapeutic efficacy and overcome the hurdles associated with solid tumor treatment. 

Improving Tumor Infiltration: Strategies to increase the infiltration of CAR NK cells into solid tumors are being developed to address the poor accessibility of the target antigen by typical CAR T/NK cells, which can lead to inefficient activation and expansion. These strategies aim to enhance the ability of CAR T/NK cells to home into tumor sites and overcome the barriers presented by the tumor microenvironment. 

Reducing Toxicities: By using NK CAR therapy we mitigate the toxic effects associated with classical CAR T-cell therapy, such as cytokine release syndrome and neurotoxicity, by engineering CAR NK cells with improved safety profiles. 

In summary, we believe our CAR NK cell therapy platform provides solutions in treating solid tumors due to the complexity of identifying a perfect target antigen, the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, and the heterogeneity of tumor antigens. Our ongoing research and development is focused on developing solutions that overcome these limitations and improve the effectiveness of CAR T cell therapy for solid tumors. 

CAR-NK-cells brief 

What are CAR-NK cells? 

CAR-NK cells are natural killer (NK) cells transduced with the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) protein. The CAR enables the NK cells to recognize and kill tumor cells via specific target antigens expressed on the surface of the malignant cells. 

Why choose CAR-NK cells over CAR-T cells? 

CAR-transduced NK cells (CAR-NK) exhibit several advantages over CAR-T cells, such as their safety in clinical use, the mechanisms by which they recognize cancer cells, and their abundance in clinical samples. 

Golubovskaya V, Sienkiewicz J, Sun J, Zhang S, Huang Y, Zhou H, Harto H, Xu S, Berahovich R, Wu L. CAR-NK Cells Generated with mRNA-LNPs Kill Tumor Target Cells In Vitro and In Vivo. Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Aug 29;24(17):13364. doi: 10.3390/ijms241713364. PMID: 37686170; PMCID: PMC10487516. 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10487516/