Adding immunity to human kidney-on-a-chip advances cancer drug testing

An immune-infiltrated human kidney organoid-on-chip model enables assessment of kidney toxicities to immunotherapeutic T cell bispecific antibody drugs with high resolution

By Benjamin Boettner

(Boston) — A growing repertoire of cell and molecule-based immunotherapies is offering patients with indomitable cancers new hope by mobilizing their immune systems against tumor cells. An emerging class of such immunotherapeutics, known as T cell bispecific antibodies (TCBs), are of growing importance with several TCBs that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved for the treatment of leukemias, lymphomas, and myelomas. These antibody drugs label tumor cells with one of their ends, and attract immune cells with another end to coerce them into tumor cell killing.