N. Nora Bennani, MD, on Diving Deeper Into T-Cell Lymphomas

“T-cell lymphomas, we know, are a heterogeneous group of diseases. But the more we do in terms of genomics, the more we are able to categorize this disease even further into subcategories that have similar responses or non-responses to various therapies. So, if we understand better the various subgroups of T-cell lymphoma, we will know better how to treat them.”

Mayo Clinic is conducting a phase 1 clinical study (NCT03017820) of VSV-IFNβ-NIS, an engineered Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV) therapy, for patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma and T-cell lymphoma (TCL). The trial is currently recruiting. VSV-IFNβ-NIS is a bullet-shaped rhabdovirus which encodes both interferon beta (IFNβ) and sodium iodine symporter (NIS) with particular tumor cell tropism. Viral IFNβ boosts the host's anti-tumor immune response and serves as an indicator of viral proliferation.

The trial’s design was presented at the 2023 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, held December 9-12, in San Diego, California, by study investigator N Nora Bennani, MD, assistant professor, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. CGTLive® spoke with Bennani to learn more about ongoing research for T-cell lymphomas and where she sees the research heading. She predicted a shift away from chemotherapy and a deeper dive into the mechanisms and tumor microenvironment of T-cell lymphomas to better be able to develop targeted therapies. She also noted that T-cell lymphomas are a very heterogenous group of diseases, and greater degrees of categorization in the group may lead to more efficacious treatment strategies.

REFERENCE

Bennani NN, Cook J, Geyer SM, et al. Phase I trial of systemic administration of vesicular stomatitis virus genetically engineered to express NIS and human interferon, in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, lymphomas, or histiocytic/dendritic cell neoplasms. Presented at: ASH 2023 Annual Meeting; December 9-12; San Diego, California. Abstract 5004