By Kat Procyk
Jason Lohmueller, assistant professor of surgery, School of Medicine, always wanted to build things.
That innate drive led him to work in biomedical engineering and synthetic biology. Today, his lab is working to genetically alter immune cells to help patients fight various cancers.
“Our immune system is constantly trying to combat infectious agents like viruses and bacteria, but it’s also constantly monitoring against cancer in our bodies,” Lohmueller said. “These new immune cell therapies that we’re investigating are trying to take advantage of that hard-wired ability and to further arm the immune system to attack the patient’s cancer cells.”
On Jan. 17, as part of the Senior Vice Chancellor Research Seminar Series, Lohmueller will be presenting his lab’s latest technological development called Universal Adaptor Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, which will be capable of targeting multiple antigens produced by various tumor cells simultaneously on solid tumors, which make up the bulk of cancers.
In CAR T-cell therapy, a patient’s T cells are taken out of the body and engineered with a virus that makes the CAR. The CAR is then able to identify and direct T cells to destroy tumor cells. However, solid tumors are more challenging for these therapies than liquid tumors to treat, in part as they can greatly vary in their gene and antigen expression. This diversity often leads to only partial destruction of the tumor during treatment, making reoccurrence likely.
“With the universal adaptor technology, we’re hoping to reduce the likelihood of cancer relapse because of its ability to recognize and kill different tumor cells,” Lohmueller said.
Though an accomplished researcher in cancer immunology and synthetic biology, Lohmueller isn’t a medical doctor or chemist by trade. He credits the success of his research to his hardworking lab members and collaborators working in the field.
“The adaptor system relies on cutting-edge chemical methods, led by our collaborator Professor Alex Deiters in Pitt’s Department of Chemistry,” Lohmueller said. “Additionally, we have benefited greatly from being in the Division of Surgical Oncology at Pitt. Clinicians give us a reality check for the logistics of implementing these therapies and help steer our efforts in developing actionable genetic designs.”
Lohmueller’s next steps over the coming years are to move these therapies to clinical trials with in vivo delivery and small molecule-targeted treatments.
“Having lost my father to cancer, I find our work not only fulfilling, but motivating working toward where cancer no longer has to be a death sentence,” Lohmueller said.