The Suicide Gene Therapy Challenge: How to Improve a Successful Gene Therapy Approach

The transfer of a suicide gene into donor lymphocytes to control alloreactivity in the context of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) represents the widest clinical application of T-cell based gene transfer, as shown by more than 100 patients treated worldwide to date, several phase I–II studies completed, and a registrative phase III study, sponsored by a biotech firm, about to begin. In this mini-review, we will summarize the clinical results obtained to date, and attempt to identify the steps envisaged to optimize the suicide gene therapy approach

Management of patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma: focus on adoptive T-cell therapy

Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) represents a heterogeneous group of malignancies with high diversity in terms of biology, clinical responses, and prognosis. Standard therapy regimens produce a 5-year relative survival rate of only 69%, with the critical need to increase the treatment-success rate of this patient population presenting at diagnosis with a median age of 66 years and many comorbidities. The evidence that an impaired immune system favors the development of NHL has opened the stage for new therapeutics, and specifically for the adoptive transfer of ex vivo-expanded antigen-specific T-cells. In this review, we discuss how T-cells specific for viral-associated antigens, nonviral-associated antigens expressed by the tumor, T-cells redirected through the expression of chimeric antigen receptors, and transgenic T-cell receptors against tumor cells have been developed and used in clinical trials for the treatment of patients with NHLs