Fighting cancer

Image shows the serial killing of three melanoma cells (red) by a single non-cancer-specific Tcell (green) in the presence of the drug, IMCgp100.

’Hijacking’ cells that normally attack common infections to target cancer instead could offer the body a ready-made army against the killer disease University researchers and Oxford-based biotech company, Immunocore Limited have uncovered.

Published , the study examined the potential of molecules on the surface of anti-cancer killer’T cells, known as’T cell receptors (TCRs) to be used to treat cancers for wh ich few disease-specific targets are available.

The Immunocore team engineered a range of TCRs to bind very tightly to cancer cells and equipped them with the ability to activate non-cancer specific’T cells. This new class of drug, named ’ImmTACs’ (Immune Mobilising mTCR against Cancer), can be used to ’hi-jack’ the body’s existing’T cells that normally kill viruses and redirect them to kill cancer cells instead.

The team included Nat Liddy and Katy Adams, Immunocore employees and PhD students at Cardiff University, as well as Professors Andy Sewell and David Price, School of Medicine.

Nat Liddy said: "With Immuncore’s novel ImmTAC drugs we found we could effectively target cancer cells and mark them for destruction by the killer’T cells that might normally fight common infections.

"Our initial studies and findings show that administration of ImmTAC could, potentially, result in the regression of established tumours".

Recent advances have enabled molecular targeting of disease using immune molecules called antigen receptors. There are two main classes of antigen receptor: antibodies and’T cell receptors.