A Place For NK Cells In The Journey Towards The Next Generation Of Adoptive Immunotherapies

Chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) have provided a powerful molecular mechanism harnessing T cells to target specific surface antigens on tumor cells. Well known examples are the products Kymriah^® (Novartis) and Yescarta^® (Kite Pharma) which use modified T cells armed with CARs targeting the CD19 antigen.

While the efficacy and durability of this cell therapy has been nothing short of astounding, we are now tasked with looking beyond CD19 and applying this powerful approach to using cytotoxic cells to kill other types of tumors, including solid tumors which present many additional challenges for a CAR engineered cell.

In this brief overview, we would like to discuss several ways in which Natural Killer (NK) cells can offer us a path forward as a delivery platform for engineered cell (and ex vivo gene) therapy. Here, we focus on four different aspects of cytotoxic cell therapy and provide some contrasts where we feel NK cells can offer promise.