Jeffrey Miller, MD, on Emerging Research With Natural Killer Cells

“There used to be a paucity of industry interested in NK cell biology and now that's exploded. Now, everybody's interested in autologous NK cells or induced pluripotent stem cells-derived NK cells.”

Natural killer (NK) cell approaches are being investigated more and more for treating both hematologic malignancies and solid tumors. Presentations on new NK cell approaches were given at the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022, held September 9-13, in Paris, France. One such presentation was given by Jeffrey Miller, MD, professor and deputy director of the Masonic Cancer Center of the University of Minnesota, on GTB-5550, a B7H3 tri-specific killer engager (TriKE) that specifically stimulated expansion of natural killer (NK) cells in preclinical models of multiple cancers.

The novel dual camelid (cam) TriKE contains wild type interleukin-15 and 2 cam engagers that target CD16 on NK cells and B7H3 on multiple solid tumors. The data presented demonstrated GTB-5550'sability to increase activity of NK cells against cancer cells after stimulation.

CGTLive spoke with Miller to learn more about NK cell research and other promising approaches discussed at the ESMO Congress. He touched on new avenues of research including NK cell combinations with PD1 blockades and different platforms to produce NK cells.

Click here to read more coverage of ESMO Congress 2022.

REFERENCE

Miler JS, Zorko N, Merino A, et al. B7H3-targeted tri-specific killer engagers deliver IL-15 to NK cells but not T-cells, and specifically target solid tumors as a pan-tumor antigen strategy mediated through NK cells. Presented at: ESMO Congress 2022, September 9-13, Paris, France.