UCLA researchers receive $1 million to develop novel CAR T-cell therapies for melanoma
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Cristina Puig-Saus, PhD, and Daniel S. Shin, MD, PhD, of UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center received a $1 million award from the U.S. Department of Defense for research into novel cell therapies for rare melanomas.
The Translational Research Award is intended to help the researchers advance the development of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy for patients with acral, mucosal or uveal melanomas. These rare melanoma subtypes are significantly more common among Black, Hispanic or Asian/Pacific Islander individuals.
The award is part of the Melanoma Research Program, which Congress established within the Department of Defense to invest in melanoma prevention, detection, diagnosis and treatment due to the increasing number of cases among active-duty service members.
Shin is assistant professor of hematology and oncology at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Health Care System. Puig-Saus is assistant adjunct professor of hematology and oncology at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, member of Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA and senior fellow of Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.
Shin and Puig-Saus oversee laboratories researching ways to improve the effectiveness of CAR T-cell therapy and broaden its applications to additional cancer types.
“Many of these patients do not respond well to currently available therapies,” Shin said in a press release. “It is exciting to have support for this project that has great potential to develop a new therapy for patients with these aggressive subtypes of melanoma.”
Both laboratories plan to conduct preclinical studies to demonstrate the efficacy and safety of CAR T cells that target tyrosinase-related protein-1 (TYRP-1) on the surface of cancer cells. TYRP-1 is highly expressed in more than half of acral melanoma and mucosal melanoma biopsies, as well as in more than 90% of uveal melanoma biopsies.
“We initially developed TYRP-1 CAR T-cell therapy for cutaneous melanoma,” Puig-Saus said in the release. “[We] are very excited to explore the potential clinical benefit of the therapy in other melanoma subtypes that are rare but have very poor prognosis.”
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