KAIST Reprograms Tumor Immune Cells

Researchers at the KAIST, led by Professor Ji-Ho Park and first author Jun-Hee Han, have developed a novel cancer treatment. This method involves injecting a drug directly into tumors, which reprograms existing macrophages into CAR-macrophages, capable of recognizing and destroying cancer cells. This approach bypasses the need for costly and time-consuming ex vivo cell modification, a major limitation of current CAR-macrophage therapies. The treatment has shown significant tumor suppression in animal models of melanoma and activated broader anticancer immune responses. The findings were published in ACS Nano and supported by the India — Anusandhan National Research Foundation.