Biomedical subjects

Christine Krueger

Publications and source records attributed to Christine Krueger.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

Artificial antigen-presenting cells: artificial solutions for real diseases.

Adoptive immunotherapy, which involves the transfer of autologous antigen-specific T cells generated ex vivo, is a promising strategy to treat a variety of life-threatening diseases. Unfortunately, current approaches for generating sufficient numbers of antigen-specific T cells lack the ability to serve as reproducible and economically viable methods. This has spurred the development of both cell- and non-cell-based artificial antigen-presenting cells to alleviate problems associated with peptide-loaded dendritic cells in current approaches to adoptive immunotherapy. Here, we review new strategies for the ex vivo generation of antigen-specific T cells and their clinical application. These new approaches have the potential to spearhead a new era of successful adoptive immunotherapy for cancer and infectious diseases.

Animals↗

PubMed2005

Technological advances in adoptive immunotherapy.

Adoptive immunotherapy is an attractive and elegant strategy for treating a variety of life-threatening diseases. Several approaches have been developed to generate antigen-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells for adoptive T-cell therapy in cancer and infectious diseases. Currently, many approaches are based on either the use of autologous peptide pulsed dendritic cells as antigen-presenting cells or nonspecific expansion of T cells. Unfortunately, current approaches lack the ability to serve as reproducible and economically viable methods. Several groups are developing new artificial approaches to overcome problems associated with dendritic cells and the nonspecific expansion of T-cell clones in order to make adoptive immunotherapy more feasible and effective. Thus, by increasing the availability of adoptive immunotherapy, we will be able to better determine the efficacy of the approaches in the treatment of a variety of diseases. In this review, we focus on technological advances that will facilitate adoptive immunotherapy. Specifically, we summarize current strategies which are either based on artificial antigen-presenting cells or on T-cell receptor gene transfer.

Antigen-Presenting Cells↗

PubMed2004

Quality and quantity: new strategies to improve immunotherapy of cancer.

Adoptive immunotherapy is a promising approach for the treatment of infectious diseases and cancer. Several lines of research are currently focusing on the development of different technologies to facilitate the induction and expansion of antigen-specific T cells. Here, we discuss two current articles that affect the field of adoptive immunotherapy. One article describes the engineering of artificial antigen-presenting cells, which promise to replace the cumbersome dendritic-cell approach for the in vitro generation of large numbers of antigen-specific T cells. The second development is a description of a new technique for the detection of functionally active antigen-specific T cells, which will enhance the ability to control the quality of the T cells to be used in adoptive immunotherapy. Together, these exciting findings will advance the field of immunotherapy.

Animals↗