New Delhi, Feb 4 || Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay have developed a simpler and more efficient method to recover immune cells grown in the lab for T-cell–based cancer therapies.
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.