Celyad Biosciences to Improve CAR-T Cell Therapy by the Introduction of shRNA

Release Date: 18-Nov-2020

Celyad Bioscience is a clinical stage biotechnology company which is focused towards the overall development of the CAR-T cell therapy for the cancer patients. The approach used by the researchers involves antigenandndash;receptor binding. Although the therapy is one of the most promising therapy for the cancer patients but all the potential of the therapy is yet to achieve. The therapy applications are yet to get discovered for all types of cancers. In order to overcome the challenge, the researchers are using CAR-T cell therapy that is based on the NK cell receptor called as NKG2D.

It is believed that most of the tumor expressed NKG2D ligands which ultimately provides the therapy to use it against multiple types of cancers. It was found by the researchers that two patients out of 15 enrolled patients showed complete partial response as well as stable disease refractory in case of colorectal cancer. The researchers are using non-gene edited technologies which includes short-hairpin RNA (shRNA), for the development of the allogenic therapy for the cancer patients.

The introduction of shRNA technology in RNA interference is a simple approach when compared with other gene editing technologies. For example: shRNA can get incorporated into the vector with the receptor, thereby reducing the overall steps of genetic engineering. Also, all the currently available single vector strategies only allows positive selection of CAR T cells. Therefore, it can be concluded that the introduction of shRNA into the CAR-T cell therapy could enhance the overall anti-tumor activity as well as the effectiveness and production of the approach for millions of patients.