Cs1-Specific Chimeric Antigen Receptor Drives Cord Blood Nk Cell Maturation And Expansion In Vivo

Chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) have been used extensively to redirect the specificity of T cells against leukemic cells, with remarkable clinical responses in patients with lymphoid malignancies. CAR-transduced natural killer (NK) cells might serve as an alternative to CAR T cells as they lack the potential to cause GVHD, and could be made available as an off-the-shelf allogeneic product for immediate clinical use. Moreover, unlike CAR-T cells, CAR NK cells retain their intrinsic capacity to recognize and target tumor cells through their native receptors, in theory making disease escape through downregulation of the CAR target antigen less likely. We have identified cord blood (CB) as a readily available source of allogeneic NK cells.