“Winning a SPARK award would be an immense honor and a confidence boost for me. Beyond personal validation, this award would serve as a powerful statement, inspiring other female scientists to pursue their dreams.”
2024 Tullie and Rickey Families Spark Awards Winner
Chen Sun, Ph.D.
Can we design better receptors for CAR-T cell therapy?
Funded: February 2024
Funded by: The generosity of various donors
Multiple myeloma is the second most common blood cancer, and while treatments have improved, a cure remains elusive. Since 2021, therapies developed with engineered immune cells, called CAR-T cell therapies, improved patient outcomes. My project aims to understand how CAR-T cells interact with cancer cells using cryo-Electron Tomography (cryo-ET). I am studying two FDA-approved CAR-T cells for multiple myeloma: Ide-cel and Cilta-cel. Both of these CAR-T therapies target the same protein on cancer cells, but they are not equally effective. Initial live cell imaging I’ve conducted shows that Cilta-cel binds to cancer cells faster than Ide-cel, which matches clinical data indicating Cilta-cel’s superior performance. Cilta-cel is also more effective even at lower doses.
We need to know more about how these therapies work. By using cryo-ET, I will freeze and thinly slice cancer cells to analyze how CAR-T cells connect and attack cancer cells. My research aims to reveal why Cilta-cel works better—and guide the development of more effective CAR-T therapies, offering new hope for cancer patients.
