Bioengineers at the University of California San Diego have pioneered a groundbreaking cancer immunotherapy that harnesses ultrasound technology to target and destroy malignant tumors while sparing healthy tissue.

This innovative approach, detailed in a recent paper published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, represents a significant advancement in making chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy effective against solid tumors.

CAR T-cell therapy, which involves genetically modifying a patient’s T cells to recognize and attack cancer cells, has shown promise in treating blood cancers and lymphoma.

However, its effectiveness against solid tumors has been limited due to the risk of on-target, off-tumor toxicity – where CAR T cells also attack normal tissues expressing the target antigens.

Led by UC San Diego bioengineering professors Peter Yingxiao Wang and Shu Chien, the research team addressed this challenge by developing CAR T cells that only express the CAR protein when exposed to ultrasound energy.

This innovative strategy allows precise control over the activation of CAR T cells, minimizing the risk of off-target effects.

The team’s approach involves injecting the modified CAR T cells into tumors and applying focused ultrasound beams to activate them. This targeted activation ensures that only the tumor cells are attacked while surrounding healthy tissues remain unaffected.

In preclinical tests on mice, this ultrasound-powered CAR T-cell therapy demonstrated both efficacy and safety, with minimal off-target side effects.

The potential of this technology is significant, as ultrasound can penetrate deep into the body, offering a non-invasive means of treating tumors buried within tissues.

While the research is still in its early stages, the team plans to conduct further preclinical studies and toxicity assessments before advancing to clinical trials. This pioneering work represents a promising step towards safer and more effective immunotherapy for solid tumors.