UCSF

Chimeric Antigen Receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapy has shown remarkable success in the treatment of hematological malignancies by reprogramming patients' own T cells to target cancer cells expressing specific antigens. However, CAR-T efficacy in solid tumors has been limited due to the difficulty of identifying a single antigen to differentiate tumor cells from healthy cells and the requirement for precise T cell-tumor cell interactions. Cell adhesion, a critical component of this interaction, plays a crucial role in governing the potency of CAR-T-mediated killing. We developed a novel synthetic receptor that can be used to program cell-cell interaction. Combined with chimeric receptors, we demonstrate the use case of a novel synthetic cell adhesion to improve the antigen sensitivity of CAR-T cells and further improve the specificity of the therapy.