Barcoding and Tracking T-Cells in Immunotherapy
April 11, 2017 | Terry Sharrer
In adoptive T-cell therapy for cancer, T-cells are isolated from the patient’s blood, and then grown up in cell culture before being reinfused. The limitation with this is that there are thousands of T-cells with varying degrees of killing cancer. To identify which cells work best, researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle have used high throughput sequencing to distinguish T-cells based on their receptors. Once they find which T-cells, based on their receptor activity, adhere to the patient’s tumor, that line can be expanded. Each T-cell type gets a barcode for surer identification. MORE
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