Engineering the immune system to kill cancer cells | News | Notre Dame News | University of Notre Dame Skip To Content Skip To Navigation Skip To Search University of Notre Dame Notre Dame News Experts ND in the News Subscribe About Us Home Contact Search Menu Home › News › Engineering the immune system to kill cancer cells Engineering the immune system to kill cancer cells Published: June 15, 2016 Author: Tammi Freehling In late 2015, former President Jimmy Carter announced that he was free of the metastatic melanoma that had spread to his liver and brain. In addition to surgery and radiation, Carter was treated with an immunotherapy drug, a new approach in cancer treatment that has a promising outlook. A research team led by University of Notre Dame chemist Brian Baker is developing a new immunotherapy, a treatment that enhances immune system function in order to treat or prevent disease, as a means to more effectively target and kill cancer cells. According to Baker, “Immunotherapy is changing how cancer is treated.” T cells play a vital role in the immune system by attacking pathogens and cancer cells. The team’s study, recently published in the journal Structure, shows how T cell receptors can be engineered for specificity and function, and provides new methods for creating T cell receptors that are able to target specific cancer antigens, protein fragments that mark a cell as cancerous. The work of Baker’s team is directed toward taking immunotherapy beyond the treatment Carter received. T cells that have been genetically altered to express engineered T cell receptors have been explored in clinical trials. Baker and his collaborators show how these receptors can be further engineered in order to recognize specific antigens on the surfaces of cancerous cells, thereby allowing cancer to be targeted with a heightened, more directed immune response with laser-like accuracy. “Our study demonstrates new routes for custom designing functional T cell receptors with optimal antigen recognition properties. This will help open the door for customized specificity in order to optimize T cell targeting and killing,” said Baker. Co-authors include Nishant Singh at Notre Dame and Dan Harris, Erik Procko and David Kranz at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign. The paper is published in the journal Structure and can be found online here: http://www.cell.com/structure/fulltext/S0969-2126(16)30072-7. Contact: Brian Baker, 574-631-9810, brian-baker@nd.edu Posted In: Research Home Experts ND in the News Subscribe About Us Related October 05, 2022 Astrophysicists find evidence for the presence of the first stars October 04, 2022 NIH awards $4 million grant to psychologists researching suicide prevention September 29, 2022 Notre Dame, Ukrainian Catholic University launch three new research grants September 27, 2022 Notre Dame, Trinity College Dublin engineers join to advance novel treatment for cystic fibrosis September 22, 2022 Climate-prepared countries are losing ground, latest ND-GAIN index shows For the Media Contact Office of Public Affairs and Communications Notre Dame News 500 Grace Hall Notre Dame, IN 46556 USA Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Pinterest © 2022 University of Notre Dame Search Mobile App News Events Visit Accessibility Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube LinkedIn