Brazilian Team Supercharges CAR-NK Cells Against Tumors
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- Researchers at Brazil's Ribeirão Preto Blood Center and Center for Cell-Based Therapy (CTC) used the NK-92 cell line to test new CAR designs incorporating 2B4 and DAP12 costimulatory components, putting the cells in a "ready to attack" state and significantly improving tumor destruction.
- The team tested dasatinib, a drug that briefly suppresses cell activity, and found that controlled pharmacological pauses further improved CAR-NK cell performance — a counterintuitive priming effect.
- In preclinical animal models, CAR-NK cells engineered with 2B4-DAP12 and pretreated with dasatinib controlled tumor growth better than more traditional versions of the therapy.
- The study, published in Frontiers in Immunology, targets a key gap in understanding which internal signaling mechanisms allow CAR-NK cells to perform at their best — an open question as CAR-T therapies have already transformed treatment for blood cancers.
- The Center for Cell-Based Therapy is one of FAPESP's Research, Innovation, and Dissemination Centers, operating within the Ribeirão Preto Blood Center and affiliated with the University of São Paulo's Ribeirão Preto Medical School.
Why it matters: Brazilian researchers demonstrated that combining costimulatory signals (2B4, DAP12) with reversible dasatinib pretreatment produces CAR-NK cells with measurably better tumor control in preclinical models. This dual-activation-plus-drug-control approach could yield next-generation off-the-shelf cancer therapies that are both more potent and more precisely tunable than current options.
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