CAR trials for Leukemia and Lymphoma treatment

Researchers at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center have launched three clinical trials to test the safety and efficacy of a novel cellular-immunotherapy that uses modified T cells, one of the immune system's primary weapons, to treat three different types of blood cancer that often defy existing therapies. "Lymphomas and leukemias affect thousands of Americans every year and unfortunately a good number of them die as a direct consequence of the disease progression or toxicity from existing treatments,"
Castro is principal investigator for all three clinical trials, dubbed ZUMA-1, ZUMA-2 and ZUMA-3. The trials utilize the recent development of so-called chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells. These are white blood cells that have been extracted from the patient and genetically modified to contain a gene that produces the CAR protein on the T cell's surface. The engineered CAR-T cells are then reintroduced into the patient with the hope they can bind to and exclusively kill cancer cells that express target proteins, such as CD19, a molecule found on cancerous B cells involved in most lymphomas and leukemias.
The potential treatment is called KTE-C19. The trials are a collaboration between Santa Monica-based Kite Pharma and multiple testing sites, including UC San Diego medical centers in Hillcrest and La Jolla. All three trials are currently recruiting participants.
ZUMA -1:Full eligibility criteria can be found at https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02348216?term=kite&rank=7
ZUMA-2:Full criteria can be found at https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02601313?term=kite&rank=6
ZUMA-3: Full eligibility criteria can be found at https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02614066?term=kite&rank=5