Department of Chemistry - PhD Student Seminar - The Next Frontier in Cellular Immunotherapy: From CAR-T to CAR-NK Cells
Supporting the below United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:支持以下聯合國可持續發展目標：支持以下联合国可持续发展目标：
Student: Ms. Xiao HAN
Department: Department of Chemistry, HKUST
Supervisor(s): Professor Kenward VONG
Abstract
Cellular immunotherapy has been a key part of cancer therapy. In addition to using highly selected tumor-reactive T cells, genetically engineered chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells have been developed and made significant progress in treating malignant tumors. Due to its CRS and neurotoxicity in CAR-T cell therapy, a more safe CAR-NK cell therapy is developed. CAR-NK cells have complex strategies to combat cancer cells: triggering direct cytotoxicity by CAR, recognizing damage patterns on the cancer cell surface, ADCC by CD16, releasing cytotoxic granules, secreting cytokines, and inducing death receptor-mediated apoptosis. CAR-NK cell therapy is considered a potential treatment for solid tumors, such as breast cancer. However, NK cells have a natural lifespan of about 2 weeks in the human body, and supplementing cytokines is one of the common strategies to prolong the survival time. How to "enhance" immune cells to target and eradicate solid tumors, and how to put them into clinical trials, remain research directions for CAR-NK cell therapy in 2026.