January 3, 2013

expert reaction to the creation of cancer-specific killer T cells from iPS cells

Researchers in Japan revealed in the journal Cell Stem Cell that they created cancer-specific, immune system cells called killer T lymphocytes, from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells). 

Dr Dusko Ilic, Senior Lecturer in Stem Cell Science, King’s College London, said:

“The study tackled a novel, quite interesting approach to cell based therapy, something that we do not usually hear about. Although this approach requires further verification and a lot of work needs to be done before we can think about clinical trials, the initial data are promising. This pioneering work definitely provides a strong foundation to build and expand our knowledge about new opportunities in cell based therapy and personalised medicine.” 

Professor Alan Clarke, Director of the European Cancer Stem Cell Research Institute, Cardiff University, said:

“This is a potentially very exciting development  which  extends our capacity to develop novel cell therapies based on IPS (Induced Pluripotency).  There are two  important features in this research –  first, the potential ability to continually ‘resupply’ the T cells, and so overcome their short half life; second, the fact that this could ultimately be tailored  to individual patients – i.e. the IPS derived therapeutic cells  could be patient specific, so overcoming problems of immune rejection of the therapeutic cells. Taken together, this offers an exciting novel treatment possibility.”

Professor Sir John Burn, Institute of Genetic Medicine, Newcastle University, said:

“This is a very appealing concept and the research team are to be congratulated on demonstrating the feasibility of expanding these killer cells using iPS techniques.  Headline writers need to beware that even if these T cells are effective, it could prove very challenging to produce large quantities safely and economically. Nevertheless, there is real promise of this becoming an alternative when conventional therapies have failed.”

Professor Chris Mason, Professor of Regenerative Medicine Bioprocessing, UCL, said:

“For the next decade, the role of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells in therapy is more likely to be in the fight against cancer than for permanent implantation to regenerate tissues and organs. The challenge is not their ability to function, but in proving their safety – the risk/benefit profile will take years to establish for permanently implanted iPS-derived cells due to the complexity of their reprogramming. However, for transformative cancer therapies, where the implanted cells may only be required to transiently initiate a ‘rapid killer punch’ before being wiped out by the patient’s immune system, their clinical application may well be far sooner. This paper lays the foundation for such an approach and moves the iPS cell focus towards clinical targets better suited to our current state of knowledge. A pragmatic route forward that will enable patients with major unmet medical needs to benefit from iPS cell therapies both safer and sooner.”

‘Regeneration of human tumor antigen-specific T cells from iPS cells derived from mature CD8+ T cells’ by Raul Vizcardo et al. published in Cell Stem Cell on Thursday 3rd January 2013.