Status: 02/17/2023 3:26 p.m
Many tumors are still incurable. At a congress, researchers discuss new strategies for eliminating tumor cells. In focus: Immunotherapies and protein killers.
By Barbara Petermann, HR
A cancer diagnosis is still a death sentence for many of those affected. In Kassel, 250 physicians and biomedical scientists therefore discussed new therapies for incurable tumors. These include, for example, pancreatic tumors or malignant brain tumors, which are still difficult to treat today.
Immunotherapies in focus
According to Martin Eilers from the Biozentrum of the University of Würzburg, chairman of the congress, the focus will be on immunotherapies, among other things. Because these would have a very good effect on many tumors: “The body’s own immune system is activated to fight tumors. This works particularly well with tumors of the hematopoietic system such as leukemia or lymphoma. So-called checkpoint inhibitors are used to counteract this.”
Checkpoint inhibitors are artificial antibodies that specifically break through a barrier that the cancer cells have built up against the immune system. In this way, immune cells can attack and eliminate the tumor cells again.
How does an immune checkpoint work?
Receptors on the defense cells in the blood can dampen or strengthen the immune response. In this way, they can protect the body’s own cells from attacks by the immune system. Cancer cells take advantage of this protection to be able to multiply undisturbed.
Complete molecular hide-and-seek
But there are tumors and metastases that hide from the immune system in the body. Such immunotherapies do not work. The researchers want to better understand this molecular game of hide-and-seek in order to then find ways to make the tumors visible to the immune system again.
Tumor cells are eaten up
Another lead that the researchers are pursuing are promising new active ingredients with a very special function, so-called PROTACs: “This is not about inhibition or about influencing function. It’s really about eating up,” explains Eilers. These protein killers are being clinically tested as a new silver bullet against cancer.
They work like this: tumor diseases are driven by altered protein molecules. All previous drugs try to inhibit these protein molecules. The PROTACs work well for prostate or breast cancer. They mark the harmful proteins and the cell receives the signal to destroy them. Eilers hopes that these PROTACs will make progress, especially in the case of childhood tumors such as neuroblastomas, which cannot be attacked by current drugs.
Immunotherapies with so-called CAR-T cells will also be discussed at the congress. These are patient cells that are genetically engineered to recognize and destroy tumor cells. The special feature: they multiply in the patient’s body and remain there even after the tumor cells have disappeared. If the tumor recurs, they can become active again.
Years to go before drugs are ready for the market
Many new drug classes will be presented and discussed at the AEK Congress. From individualized vaccination strategies to various immune therapies to protein killers.
The new approaches in basic research give a lot of hope. Nevertheless, the active ingredients still need many years before they can be put on the market as medicines.