Rachel Lynn, PhD, on Reprogramming Cell Therapies to Combat Exhaustion

“What we're excited to see is that these 2 technologies seem to be useful when used in combination. So, we're excited about the potential of c-Jun to reduce exhaustion and impact T-cell function in patients. And from our newer preclinical data, it looks like we potentially have an avenue to further enhance that reduction in exhaustion.”

T-cell exhaustion is 1 of the largest barriers to unlocking improved efficacy of cell therapies in treating solid tumors. Companies and institutions are developing new technologies and strategies to combat this issue, such as Lyell Immunopharma, which has both clinical and preclinical cell therapy programs in development for solid tumors.

Lyell’s associate director of research, Rachel Lynn, PhD, presented some of the company’s newest research at the World Oncology Cell Therapy Congress (WOCTC) held April 25-26 in Boston, Massachusetts. CGTLive sat down with Lyell to learn more about the reprogrammingstrategies Lyell is developing for improving cell therapy in solid tumors, such as overexpressing c-Jun and the company’s newest target, knocking out Nr4a3. She discussed the synergistic potential of these technologies in overcoming T-cell exhaustion and hopefully improve efficacy of cell therapy in solid tumors.

Lynn also discussed the clinical-stage programs in Lyell’s pipeline that are reprogrammed with the company’s Epi-R technology, which is designed to preserve features of durable stemness. These programs are the tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy LYL845, which is being evaluated in melanoma with expansion cohorts planned in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and colorectal cancer, and the ROR1-targeted, c-Jun-expressing chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy LYL797, which isbeing evaluated in triple-negative breast cancer and NSCLC.

Click here to check out more coverage from WOCTC.

REFERENCE

Lynn R. Enabling CAR T in solid tumors by reducing exhaustion. Presented at: WOCTC; April 25-26; Boston, Massachusetts.