Unlocking Cancer’s Weakness: How Scientists Are Targeting Mesothelin

Unlocking Cancer’s Weakness: How Scientists Are Targeting Mesothelin

ByHolly Zink

When it comes to fighting cancer, scientists have been working hard to find better ways to help patients. One exciting area they’re exploring is something called CAR-T therapy, which targets specific proteins found on cancer cells. One of these proteins, called mesothelin, is found in different kinds of cancer like mesothelioma, ovarian, lung cancer, and some types of leukemia. But using CAR-T therapy against mesothelin has been tricky. The treatment sometimes gets tired out, and other proteins in the body can stop it from working well. To fix these problems, scientists have come up with a new way to make CAR-T therapy work better against mesothelin in cancer. Game-Changing Journey to Success First off, they made a special kind of…

CAR-T Cells + Keytruda: New Immunotherapy for Pleural Mesothelioma?
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CAR-T Cells + Keytruda: New Immunotherapy for Pleural Mesothelioma?

ByAlex Strauss

Researchers at a top US cancer center are experimenting with a new approach to immunotherapy for pleural mesothelioma – with exciting results.  The research was done at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and published in a recent issue of Cancer Discovery.  The Phase I trial is the first to treat pleural mesothelioma patients with CAR-T cell therapy and the PD-1 blocker pembrolizumab (Keytruda). Although the trial was small, 83 percent of patients lived for more than a year. Some lived for nearly two.  Malignant Mesothelioma commonly claims the lives of patients within months. This new type of immunotherapy for pleural mesothelioma could be a breakthrough in improving survival. The Challenge of Malignant Mesothelioma Scientists have known about…

T-Cell Immunotherapy Trial Could be Good News for Mesothelioma Patients
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T-Cell Immunotherapy Trial Could be Good News for Mesothelioma Patients

ByAlex Strauss

The first four mesothelioma patients treated with a new kind of T-cell immunotherapy have responded well with few side effects.  That is the word from researchers working with the drug TC-210. TC-210 is a type of T cell therapy. It is made by TCR² Therapeutics. Malignant mesothelioma is one of several kinds of cancers that overproduce the protein mesothelin. In the Phase I trial, tumors regressed in all five cancer patients who received T-cell immunotherapy with TC-210.  Targeting Cancer with T-Cells T-cells are immune system cells that help fight cancer and other invaders. Mesothelioma and other cancers have ways of avoiding the body’s natural killer T-cell response. T-cell immunotherapy helps to turn it back on.  TC-210 is like a “living…