The Hidden Truth About TILs and NK Cell Cancer Treatments

We're in exciting times now where the immune system and immunotherapies is the central part of really coming after a lot of cancers. And we have a relatively new FDA approved treatment that uses natural killer cells, tils tumor infiltrated lymphocytes. But I'm going to tell you why I'm not super excited because we've been working in the year of natural killer cells for a couple of decades and I think there's a better way to do it. But I want to talk about these important troops. They're the ones that really kill cancer and many tumors on different levels. And recently this was approved by the FDA for melanoma. But these natural cells, these are the natural killers. What your the Lord has given you to kind of keep cancer at bay or kill cancer cells and tumors. They're found inside the melanoma tumors or any tumor. These tills then are taken and they're grown and then they're put into the body. But these are exhausted cells because they already in the tumor. And so they have to use cytokines and other agents to awaken them, get them moving and put them back into the body. Now when done here in the United States they're using a lot of human product which is great. But if you go to Mexico or Latin America they're using animal based product which deal with to grow and expand these cells. We've only used human based products in my two decades and working in cell culture otherwise you can have immune responses that are unfavorable and all kinds of unknown things because you're just dealing with cross reactivity and proteins that you don't really want to be doing. And the reason people do it is it's so much cheaper, it's significantly cheaper. So they don't want to buy the media culture cytokines that are expensive. So they just buy if you will, the cheap stuff from China. What's the problem with this therapy? So the tills that are done here in the US are good products, are used in melanoma, they're human based deri. These tumor infiltrating lymphocytes just basically are natural killer cells that have already made it to the tumor and then it's to reteach them, what to do, get them fired up again and get them to the tumors. Now that's different than ait which is what we use, which is called a togless adoptive immunotherapy. This is a natural killer cell, but it's a concert of the immune system. So it takes dendritic cells that are the teachers of the immune system loads them with neoantigens, meaning the new information from the tumor and damps. These are really important because these dams carry all the and stress signaling of the antigen. And then the dendritic cell teaches the natural killer cell exactly where to sniff out and find the cancer. Like a hound dog, if you will. And then it's exactly what it does. But now you have fresh cells, cytotoxic cells, your own cells. And we just don't see the same reactions with tills. If they're done and they're typed, you'll get lymph depletion, weakening of the immune system, you'll need chemotherapy, cytokine. So a lot of these are now done in hospital oversight because they're using proleukin alongside it and they're having to watch the patient because you can have some pretty ser. We can avoid a lot of that. That's why we prefer this to those other natural killer cell therapies. With ait, we just don't see those reactions. We see an immune system that we can modulate, type and get to the tumor and do it in a way that allows the body to use fresh healthy cells and dose it, get those response tumor, kill, pass the information on, reteach the immune system, keep killing until the immune system starts to behave the way it was supposed to. Normally. The same thing, the same ideas with tilt. I mean, these are natural killer cells in both ways. They're powerful because these natural killer cells can pass the blood brain barrier. They need ID badges. If they can type the cancer, they can get to the tumor and they can basically dissolve it. So how do we do this? Well, we start from the blood and we begin by teaching the tumor what to do. The dendritic cells are the key here because they're the master teachers. And we use cytokines to induce these cells. But we also use the damps, the danger signals from the damps, to prime these dendritic cells and the natural killer cells so that they hit the cancer faster and without needing any specific neoantigen. So it's working on this crosstalk beautifull to the patient. And so if you look at a side by side comparison, we can see with the tils you need actual tumor. With ait, we can just draw the natural killer cells and dendritic cells from the blood. We use apheresis, we collect it and then we grow, separate the cells and expand them so we don't actually need tumor material. And the reason that's important is because we see a lot of patients with advanced and late stage cancers that don't enough there to really grow and expand the cells. So we're able to do a fantastic job with just drawing the blood and teaching it right from the blood but using the damps, the information that's already coming from the tumor and the antigens from the tumor that are being passed on from the dendritic cell. With tils you need the actual biopsy or the tumor and you have to extract the natural killer cells. So manufacturing can fail. If you can't find enough natural killer cells then you can't expand it. With ait, that's never the problem. We can draw it from the blood, we avoid the tills and the biopsy problem. We can build it right from the patient's own immune system and we don't have the reactions, we don't have the hyper immune reactions that can happen with tills. And this allows for repeatable dosing, continual care retraining of the immune system that we have used for several fresh, strong and targeted. The TIL cells from the inside of the tumor are often exhausted. Remember these natural kill cells already finished their work and their product quality can vary by patient to patient. And so they use different cytokines and technologies to awaken them. When we make sure all our cells are awakened and properly operating before they go into the patient. And using the stress signaling pathway specific antigens helps the natural killer cell recognize the tumors in the cancer cells very quickly. The patient experienced with tils can require lymphodepleting chemo and often high dose cytok kind where you have to really wash these patients. Fever, fluid changes, infections and you have these different recovery windows. With AIT we have none of that is very general low toxicity. Sometimes you might get a little heat over the wherever the tumor might be or little fever and then it clears. But it's very general or a tiny bit of pain over the tumor site that clears. So these are a toggless from your own body and we just reduce the risk of not getting good compatibility. So this is important because natural killer cells are the key to many tumors and cancer types and they make a big difference. The tills were brough and melanoma cancers are a great place for immunotherapies to get their first approvals because it's one of the most immune centric tumors. Lung, melanoma, renal cell. These types of cancers they're considered hot, not cold. But we work to make all tumors hot by changing the tumor microenvironment and then allowing ait, the natural killer cells and the precision targeting to go right to the tumor and do its work. So this is the difference between the two. And if you've ever noticed where a patient has had a failure of, let's say, the most common immunotherapy today, a PD1 inhibitor, it's because the tumor microenvironment has shifted. The natural killer cells need to be renewed. So even when your natural killer cells are working better and your tumor microenvironment has improved, your PD1 inhibitors are going to work much better as well, and you're going to have a higher response rate clinically. That's what we see. So it's important to look at the immune system as a concert and all of these things working together to help you, the patient, get the best immunotherapy possible. But what we see is there's a big difference in the types of immunotherapies that are out there. But it's exciting that immunotherapy is growing and we've been doing this for several decades and we really think it's at the central part of helping people overcome. Do you want to battle with a worn out weapon like troops that are exhausted and tired, that are inside the tumor, or fresh new ones? Young, well trained, they're taught by the best teachers in the body. And that's really the difference that we see between AIT and TILs, which are tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, these natural killer cells that are pulled out of the tumor and then grown for weeks. Where we like to grow fresh natural killer cells from the blood primed by the dendritic cells, new antigens from the tumor using these danger signals amplified by damps, these new antigen signals and this repe leads to what we call a virtuous response. You get a tumor kill and you get teaching and more tumor kill and more teaching as we help to clear up these cancers. So this is the difference between the two. And I know there's more complexity to it, but it's not an entire class on cellular vaccine development, but it's giving you an oversight and understanding so that you can see that immunotherapy is developing and it's a very exciting time. The goal of all these therapies is remission for patients. I hope this was helpful and may the Lord bless you on your journey to healing.