The importance of immune profiling in CAR-T therapies

The successful use of immunotherapies to combat cancer is expanding rapidly, with an increasing number of therapies approved for clinical use. The precision of the immune system allows a more targeted approach to killing cancer cells, while also sparing healthy cells. One key area has been the use of gene-modified cell therapies, with the introduction of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells leading the field. The CAR construct is designed to interact with a specific surface epitope or antigen present on the tumour cell, which once in close proximity enables the immune cell to kill the tumour cell. Despite progress, obstacles remain around the technical difficulties of phenotyping, profiling and purifying immune cells, alongside observed differences in patient responsiveness to therapy. Research is now progressing to explore the introduction of CAR constructs into alternative immune cells, for example CAR-NK or CAR-macrophages, and to investigate gene modified cells that target solid tumours. In this webinar we will explore the power of flow cytometry in this expanding area including: • The importance of profiling immune cells during development of advanced cell therapies • How to generate more biologically-relevant data through measurements of phenotypes and functions. • What the future holds for CAR research