A brain tumor occurs when a group of cells within the brain turn cancerous and grow out of control, creating a mass. It can happen to anyone, we could basically say at random, and the cause of most brain tumors remains unknown, however, there are some risk factors to keep in mind, like age, radiation, family history, and certain genetic conditions. Right now, it’s common to try to remove brain tumors surgically. In some cases, that’s unfortunately an impossible task, but resorting to other treatments may not work either. So what now?
There are molecular therapies that have been developed; however, it is difficult to effectively deliver them to the brain. Better said, it is difficult to restrict the action of these therapeutics to the brain to avoid peripheral or systemic toxicities. Researchers have realized that immune cells could potentially be helpful in this situation. They have evolved to infiltrate diverse tissues, integrate information about their surroundings, or reshape tissue ecosystems, and specifically, T cells can cross the blood-brain barrier under healthy and pathogenic conditions. These properties would make them the ideal candidates for such a job.
In this experiment, a set of brain-sensing T cells was programmed to locally deliver therapeutics customized for cancer or neuroinflammation. Finding proteins and other possible “GPS markers” in different parts of tissue, they created receptors with marker-induced transcriptional response, and it worked!
To test it further, this platform was used to locally induce a set of genetically encoded payloads directed toward different brain diseases. T cells (programmed to induce CAR expression) were able to treat both primary and secondary brain cancers, which further proved the potential of this novel approach to brain cancer treatment.
We can only wait until this is tested further and undergoes clinical trials, and if everything goes well, it would be insanely beneficial not only in modern approaches to cancer treatment, but also possibly to other diseases of the central nervous system.
Resources:
M. S. Simic, et al. (2024) Programming tissue-sensing T cells that deliver therapies to the brain
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