Training Immune Cells to Fight Specific Cancers

This patent describes a method to treat specific cancers like esophageal or lung cancer by creating specialized immune cells in the lab and giving them to patients to kill cancer cells that display a particular protein fragment.

What it covers

The patent claims a method for treating cancers that produce too much of a protein called KRT5. It involves taking a patient's own immune cells, specifically T cells, or T cells from a healthy donor (claim 3), and training them in a lab (in vitro) to recognize a specific part of the KRT5 protein (SEQ ID NO: 2) when it's presented by another cell (an antigen presenting cell) on an MHC class I molecule (claim 1). These trained T cells, called cytotoxic T cells, are then activated and expanded in number (claim 5) before being given back to the patient. Once inside the patient, these activated T cells target and kill cancer cells overexpressing KRT5, such as those found in esophageal cancer (claim 16) or lung cancer (claim 17). For example, a patient with esophageal cancer could receive a dose of their own T cells, which were previously taught in a lab to find and destroy cells showing the KRT5 protein fragment.

What it doesn't cover

• —Does not cover immunotherapy methods that target cancer cells without specifically relying on the KRT5 polypeptide (SEQ ID NO: 2).
• —Does not cover treatments for cancers that do not overexpress the KRT5 polypeptide.
• —Does not cover T-cell therapies where the T cells are not activated in vitro by an antigen-presenting cell presenting the specific SEQ ID NO: 2 peptide with an MHC class I molecule.
• —Does not cover treatments for cancers outside the specified list, which includes esophageal, lung, urinary bladder, head and neck, and gastric cancers.
• —Does not cover immune therapies that use antibodies or other binding molecules to target the KRT5 peptide directly without involving activated T cells.

The clever bit

The novelty lies in identifying a specific peptide fragment (SEQ ID NO: 2) from the KRT5 protein, which is overexpressed in certain cancers, and then devising a precise in vitro method to activate a patient's own T cells to specifically recognize and kill cancer cells displaying this particular fragment.

Why it matters

This patent is significant because it outlines a specific approach within the rapidly growing field of cancer immunotherapy, particularly adoptive T-cell therapy. By identifying a specific tumor-associated peptide (from KRT5) and a method to train T cells against it, it offers a pathway for developing highly targeted treatments for difficult-to-treat cancers. This type of personalized or semi-personalized medicine aims to harness the body's own immune system to fight cancer more effectively and with potentially fewer side effects than traditional chemotherapy.

Real-world examples

• 1.Adoptive T-cell therapies
• 2.Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapies
• 3.T-cell receptor (TCR) based immunotherapies