Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay have developed a simpler and more efficient method to recover immune cells grown in the laboratory for T-cell-based cancer therapies, potentially addressing a key bottleneck in immunotherapy production.
In treatments such as CAR T-cell therapy, clinicians extract T-cells, an important component of the immune system, from a patient’s blood, modify and multiply them in the laboratory, and then infuse them back into the patient to fight cancer.
For these therapies to work, laboratories must retrieve the grown cells carefully to keep them alive and functional.
“Cell recovery sounds simple on paper, but in practice it turns out to be one of the biggest challenges,” said Prof Prakriti Tayalia, from the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering at the IIT Bombay.
“Without enough healthy cells, you cannot test them properly or use them for therapy,” she added.
To better replicate the body’s natural environment, Tayalia’s team worked with electrospun scaffolds—thin, mat-like structures made of extremely fine fibres that resemble a dense fishing net.
The researchers grew Jurkat T-cells, a human cell line commonly used to study T-cell biology, cancer, and HIV, within electrospun scaffolds made from polycaprolactone.
Microscopic observations showed that the cells actively migrated into the scaffold and became tightly lodged between the fibres, closely mimicking how cells behave within tissues.
Recovery Method Impacts Cell Survival
The study found that the method used to retrieve cells from these scaffolds had a major impact on cell survival.
When trypsin, a commonly used enzyme, used, a higher level of cell survival declined due to increased cell death.
In contrast, cells recovered using Accutase, a milder enzyme, survived in significantly greater numbers and retained healthier behaviour. These cells formed clusters—an essential step before T-cells divide—and continued to grow well after recovery.
“Harsh treatments to cells, using enzymes such as trypsin, can damage key surface proteins needed for immune signalling and activation, reducing the cell’s therapeutic usefulness. Accutase appears mild enough to avoid this problem,” Tayalia said.
The findings, published in the journal Biomaterials Science, suggest that electrospun scaffolds combined with gentler recovery techniques could improve how laboratories prepare cells for therapies such as CAR T-cell treatment.
“If we want these advanced therapies to reach patients, every step matters. How we grow cells, and how we retrieve them, can make a real difference,” Tayalia said.
Also Read: UQ Researchers Study Lung Cancer Cell ‘Neighbourhoods’ To Explain Immunotherapy Failure
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