Moffitt Experts’ Study Aims to Improve TIL Therapy Process

A team of specialists at Moffitt Cancer Center is hoping a promising study will help establish which melanoma patients will respond best to tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy. The research was pioneered by James Mulé, IPhD, associate center director of Translational Science at Moffitt. The analysis was presented at the 2024 Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer annual meeting by immunologist Daniel Abate-Daga, PhD.

TIL therapy is a type of immunotherapy that uses a patient’s own cells that have already entered the tumor to try and attack it. Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes are removed from a patient’s tumor and grown in large numbers inside a lab. The TILs are then given back to the patient, actively attacking cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone. It was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in February to treat advanced melanoma.

“In this study we aimed to determine whether the 12-chemokine gene expression signature (12-CK GES) that detects the presence of tertiary lymphoid structures (a cluster of immune cells that form in response to chronic inflammation such as cancer) can be used to predict if TIL therapy is more likely to work on a patient,” Abate-Daga said. “As part of a series of retrospective analyses of samples collected and banked at Moffitt, we found that the 12-CK GES can indeed identify tumors that are more likely to yield tumor-reactive TIL.”

Daniel Abate-Daga, PhD

Furthermore, Mulé, Abate-Daga and others looked at melanoma samples from a group of patients across four separate melanoma clinical trials conducted at the cancer center that had received TIL. Their research found that patients who responded to TIL therapy showed a higher 12-CK score compared to the nonresponders.

“This all shows we have a tool we can use so that patients who are not likely to respond to TIL therapy do not have to undergo treatment that is not going to help them,” Abate-Daga said.

The team plans to extend and further confirm this retrospective analysis in the near future. “Ultimately the team wants to implement this as a clinical tool for decision-making,” Abate-Daga said.

During #SITC24 Moffitt’s Daniel Abate-Daga, PhD presents a retrospective analysis of a 12-chemokine gene expression signature (12-CK GES) identified melanomas with heightened tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs). Ongoing studies will extend this analysis to other tumor types… pic.twitter.com/ofOlEV1AKQ

— Moffitt Cancer Center (@MoffittNews) November 9, 2024