Reprogramming the neighborhood: how a soluble factor shields pancreatic tumors from CAR-T cells

“It is an area of unmet need, and that pushes the field to develop new therapies before every ‘i’ is dotted and every ‘t’ is crossed.”

Abi Pinchbeck, Commissioning Editor, Cell & Gene Therapy Insights , speaks with William Matsui, Professor, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Bryan McClellan, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, MD Anderson Cancer Center, about a recent Nature Communications study, conducted at UT Dell Medical School, on immunotherapy resistance in pancreatic cancer. They discuss the dormant, cancer-stem-like cells that secrete epiregulin to protect the wider tumor, what blocking that axis could mean for combination strategies with cell therapy and checkpoint blockade, the translational path to the clinic, and the implications for engineering CAR‑T cells against solid tumors.

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