President dedicates CAR-T cell therapy at IIT Bombay to the nation

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President Draupadi Murmu dedicated CAR-T cell therapy at IIT Bombay to the nation.

An Overview of the News

• CAR-T cell therapy, used in treating cancer patients, has been developed by IIT Bombay-incubated company ImmunoAdoptive Cell Therapy (ImmunoACT) in India.

• This therapy is the result of a collaborative effort between IIT Bombay and Tata Memorial Center (TMC).

• It has been designed and developed at IIT Bombay, with integrated process development and manufacturing conducted at ImmunoACT.

• Clinical investigations and translational studies were conducted by teams at TMH.

• It is expected that the CAR-T cell therapy product has the potential to save many lives at a much lower cost than similar products available outside India.

CAR T-cell therapy:

• It is a treatment method where a patient's T cells, a type of immune system cell, are modified in a laboratory setting to target cancer cells.

• T cells are extracted from the patient's blood, and in the lab, a gene for a specific receptor called a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) is introduced into these T cells.

• The CAR enables the modified T cells to bind to a particular protein found on the patient's cancer cells.

• Following this modification, large quantities of CAR T cells are cultured in the laboratory and subsequently administered to the patient through infusion.

• This therapy is primarily employed in treating certain types of blood cancers, and ongoing research is exploring its potential for treating other forms of cancer.

• CAR T-cell therapy is also referred to as chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy.