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A genetic switch that activates immune cells as they fight tumors: this is the new strategy developed by an international research team coordinated by Velia Siciliano at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT—Italian Institute of Technology) in Naples and described in the journal Nature Communications. The study marks another step toward engineering precise and more effective synthetic immunotherapies against solid tumors, such as melanoma and breast cancer.

The international collaboration brings together Siciliano's group at IIT in Naples, the University of Edinburgh and the Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy (LIT) in Regensburg, combining complementary expertise in synthetic biology, immunology and artificial intelligence.

T-cell-based immunotherapies are among the most promising strategies against cancer, but researchers are working to precisely control their activity and long-term effectiveness once they are circulating in the body. Cancer cells can be highly resistant, weakening the action of T cells.

Siciliano's research aims to enhance genetically modified T cells, known as CAR-T cells, through synthetic biology circuits that give immune cells specific properties. In this latest study, Siciliano and her team have developed a new technology that introduces a switch into CAR-T cells, controlling the activation of therapeutic genes only when the cells receive specific biological signals from cancer cells.

"Synthetic biology allows us to modify immune cells to make them more effective. In this study, we added a kind of switch that turns T cells on and off like light bulbs when they come into contact with cancer cells, activating programs that support their action.

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