Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cell Design through Systems Biology – UROP Spring Symposium 2021

Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cell Design through Systems Biology

Amogh Angadi

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Pronouns: he/him/his

Research Mentor(s): Joseph Decker, Assistant Research Scientist
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering
Presentation Date: Thursday, April 22, 2021
Session: Session 4 (2pm-2:50pm)
Breakout Room: Room 17
Presenter: 4

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Abstract

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells are an emerging therapy for drug-resistant cancers. So far, they have only been effective on hematological malignancies such as leukemia, but have had little success on solid tumors such as triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), due to the immunosuppressive nature of solid tumors that prevents the CAR T cells from operating effectively. In this study, we used publicly available single cell RNA sequencing data to study how fibroblasts in diseased and healthy patients affect and communicate with the CAR T cells. We used Seurat to cluster the different cells in the tumor microenvironment in healthy and diseased tissue and ran a survival analysis for each cluster. Our results show us that the cluster containing macrophages, which is defined by the FOS, DNAJB1, ZFP36, JUNB, and KLF4 genes, has a significant effect on the survival of patients with TNBC. We hope to confirm these computational results through in vivo experimentation of mice infected with TNBC. These data will shed light on how to better engineer CAR T cells to make them more effective in targeting solid tumors.

Authors: Amogh Angadi, Joseph Decker
Research Method: Laboratory Research

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