Uveal melanoma (UM) is the most common cancer of the eye in adults and, in its advanced stages, is resistant to conventional therapy. Adoptive Cellular Therapy (ACT) is a promising treatment option that uses the patient’s own immune system cells to treat cancer. ACT involves the isolation and expansion of cancer-specific immune cells (T cells) that are infused into patients. These T cells can then go to tumor sites, kill cancer cells, and potentially provide a long-lasting response that protects against recurrence of the cancer. We have developed a form of ACT known as endogenous T cell (ETC) therapy. In ETC, cancer-specific T cells are isolated from the patient’s blood and grown in the lab ...

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Uveal melanoma (UM) is the most common cancer of the eye in adults and, in its advanced stages, is resistant to conventional therapy. Adoptive Cellular Therapy (ACT) is a promising treatment option that uses the patient’s own immune system cells to treat cancer. ACT involves the isolation and expansion of cancer-specific immune cells (T cells) that are infused into patients. These T cells can then go to tumor sites, kill cancer cells, and potentially provide a long-lasting response that protects against recurrence of the cancer. We have developed a form of ACT known as endogenous T cell (ETC) therapy. In ETC, cancer-specific T cells are isolated from the patient’s blood and grown in the lab to produce a type of cell that can persist long-term in the recipient patient. The effectiveness of these T cells can be further enhanced by the administration of Yervoy, an FDA-approved therapy that protects T cells from inhibition. The goal of this proposed work is to treat UM patients with ETC in combination with Yervoy, and evaluate the safety and efficacy of this treatment combination in this patient population. A historical problem with the use of ACT for the treatment of melanomas is that the proteins that are recognized and targeted by the cancer-specific T cells can also be found on some normal cells, and this can result in undesirable side effects. An important feature of this proposal is that our T cells will specifically recognize a newly discovered target that is found in UM but not in normal cells, thus presenting a much safer treatment target option

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