Reprogramming Phagocytic Cells as Treatment for Cancer
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Reprogramming Phagocytic Cells as Treatment for Cancer
IRAS ID
231058
Contact name
Mark A Vickers
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 10 months, 31 days
Research summary
Many cancers are still incurable. We wish to test a novel approach to cancer therapy, which will insert engineered ’chimaeric’ genes into blood stem cells. These genes will be programmed to be expressed in cells that are ’phagocytic’, that is they eat other cells. Their usual job is to dispose of cells that are dying as part of normal cellular turnover. But if we replace the external domains of proteins that normally recognise signals expressed on the surface of dying cells with antibody domains that recognise cancer cells, the re-engineered cells should then eat cancer cells. We have demonstrated we can do this in the laboratory, but now seek to extend these observations, in particular to see if the effect can be detected in vivo in mice. In more detail we will transduce human cord blood stem cells with chimaeric phagocytic genes expressing phagocytic receptors that target B cell antigens, then engraft these cells into genetically immunosuppressed mice. We hope these mice will be resistant to B cell lymphomas.
REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 1
REC reference
17/NS/0120
Date of REC Opinion
18 May 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion