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Researchers at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have identified a new strategy to make cancer-fighting immune cells stronger and potentially longer-lasting, a discovery that could help improve the effectiveness of immunotherapies that use a patient's own immune cells to attack cancer.

The study, published in Frontiers in Immunology, found that temporarily activating a protein called p53, best known for its role in preventing cancer, helped immune cells develop characteristics associated with longer-lasting immune responses. The treated cells showed fewer signs of exhaustion, had greater energy reserves and were more effective at killing melanoma cells in the laboratory.

The findings suggest that adding a drug during the preparation of engineered immune cells could offer a relatively simple way to improve existing T-cell therapies without requiring additional genetic modifications.

Engineered T-cell therapies, including chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy and T-cell receptor (TCR) therapy, have transformed treatment for certain blood cancers and are increasingly being investigated for solid tumors.

These treatments involve collecting a patient's immune cells, genetically modifying them in a laboratory to recognize cancer and then infusing them back into the patient to attack tumors.

Despite their success, one of the biggest challenges is T-cell exhaustion , which occurs when immune cells gradually lose their ability to multiply and attack tumors after repeated exposure to cancer. The process used to prepare these cells for treatment can also cause them to mature too quickly, making them less likely to survive and remain effective over time.

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