10 Years in the making: 1st human reporter gene imaging for cancer immunotherapy!

January 18, 2017

Work between Stanford, UCLA, and the City of Hope allows for the first imaging of T-cells marked with reporter genes in cancer patients. This work is a culmination of over 10 years of pre-clinical work and regulatory approvals to translate fundamental strategies developed in the Gambhir lab for first-in-patient studies. These techniques allow one to answer where engineered T cells go in the body, how many cells reach a given location, and if they survive. These strategies will be critical for optimizing immunotherapies for cancer and also have several other key applications.