Ege University Faculty of Engineering Department of Bioengineering Dr. The subject project “Enriching the alternative target antigen pool with single cell genomic data for CAR T cell therapy against non-small cell lung cancer”, conducted by Faculty Member Yasin Kaymaz, Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) Research Support Unit (ARDEB) It was found eligible to be supported within the scope of the Career Development Program.
Ege University Rector Prof. Dr. Necdet Budak, for his success, Dr. He congratulated Faculty Member Yasin Kaymaz. prof. Dr. Budak said, “As Aegean University, we are one of the universities that give the most projects to TUBITAK and whose projects are most accepted. Together with the R&D, innovation and research climate we have implemented at our university, our projects have increased both in quality and quantity. I congratulate our teacher and the project team and wish them continued success.”
Giving information about the project, Dr. Faculty Member Yasin Kaymaz said, “There is no FDA-approved CAR T cell therapy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) yet. One of the most important reasons for this is the low specificity of existing tumor antigens and their high side effects. Therefore, identifying new target antigens and increasing the efforts to expand the candidate pool will also open the doors of immunotherapy for NSCLC.”
Explaining the aspects of the project that distinguishes it from similar studies, Dr. Lecturer Yasin Kaymaz said, “Our project will contribute to a paradigm shift in the selection of candidate antigens for CAR T cell therapy by reprocessing existing single cell transcriptome data. The specificity of new NSCLC antigens, whose candidacy potential is determined by bioinformatic analysis, will be revealed in lung tumor and healthy tissue samples of cancer patients and will open the door to possible clinical studies. Since the tumor antigens targeted to be detected for CAR T cell therapy will be surface proteins, it will form the scientific basis for non-invasive diagnostic methods such as liquid biopsy in blood. “Our unique knowledge-mining approach using single-cell sequencing and metadata will help expand the scope of current treatments for other malignancies as well.”
“Tumor-specific antigens will be discovered”
Emphasizing that the product of advanced analytical and molecular techniques, single cell sequencing data can be reprocessed with accurate bioinformatics approaches, allowing the discovery of previously undetected tumor-specific antigens and new therapeutic applications. Faculty Member Yasin Kaymaz said, “The aim of the project is to create an information generation line that allows the discovery of new tumor antigens so that NSCLC can be targeted with CAR T cells. To achieve the goal, it is aimed to expand the target antigen pool with single cell sequencing data and to perform experimental validations of the activities of candidate antigens. These project methods consist of data enrichment with bioinformatic techniques and detection of candidate antigens, determination of the efficacy of selected antigens on lung cancer clinical tumor samples and normal tissues by immunohistochemistry.
Conducted by Dr. In the project carried out by Faculty Member Yasin Kaymaz and carried out in multidisciplinary cooperation; As a researcher, Ege University Faculty of Medicine faculty members Assoc. Dr. Ayşe Caner and Assoc. Dr. İlker Akçam, as the project consultant, Faculty of Medicine faculty members Prof. Dr. Ali Veral and Prof. Dr. Holy Turhan, Faculty of Engineering Computer Engineering Department faculty member Assoc. Dr. Hasan Bulut takes charge.
Source: (BYZHA) – Beyaz News Agency
