Exploring New Cancer Therapies that use a Patient’s Immune System to Fight Tumors

Christian Hinrichs, MD

Research underway at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey will contribute to the development of new cancer treatments that are based on the administration of cancer-fighting immune cells to patients. This type of treatment is known as adoptive cell therapy. Healthy volunteers with no history of cancer are being sought to contribute blood cells that may be used in the development of cancer clinical trials.

The blood cells are collected through a procedure called apheresis in which blood is run through a machine that separates plasma and cells from the blood. The cells will be stored and used to manufacture adoptive cell transfer therapies as part of approved clinical trials and other clinical research that are separate from this study. The role of the healthy volunteer cells is to make the cancer-fighting immune cells collected from patients grow to large numbers in the laboratory so that they can be given as a cancer treatment.

Christian Hinrichs, MD, chief of the Section of Cancer Immunotherapy and co-director of the Duncan and Nancy MacMillan Cancer Immunology and Metabolism Center of Excellence at Rutgers Cancer Institute, is the principal investigator of the study. “Adoptive cell therapy is a living treatment that harnesses the ability of immune cells to multiply and fight cancer in patients. This type of treatment is emerging as an effective, and sometimes curative, strategy for certain cancers that cannot be treated any other way. The availability of cells from healthy volunteers is crucial to ongoing development of these treatments and specifically to the generation of treatments for our patients participating in clinical trials at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey,” notes Dr. Hinrichs, who is also a professor of medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

Individuals aged 18 and older who weigh at least 100 pounds are eligible to take part in the study. Other criteria also must be met. Prior to being accepted into the study, participants are required to undergo other tests including routine bloodwork and a physical exam.

Approximately 500 participants are being sought to take part in the study, which is available through Rutgers Cancer Institute. For more information on how to take part in this trial, individuals can email: celltherapy@cinj.rutgers.edu.

About Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey
As New Jersey’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, Rutgers Cancer Institute, together with RWJBarnabas Health, offers the most advanced cancer treatment options including bone marrow transplantation, proton therapy, CAR T-cell therapy and complex surgical procedures. Along with clinical trials and novel therapeutics such as precision medicine and immunotherapy – many of which are not widely available – patients have access to these cutting-edge therapies at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey in New Brunswick, Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey at University Hospital in Newark, as well as through RWJBarnabas Health facilities. To make a tax-deductible gift to support the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, call 848-932-8013 or visit www.cinj.org/giving.