Dr. Robert Svatek and his laboratory have a new publication in the Journal for Immunology of Cancer.

Ji N, Mukherjee N, Reyes RM, Gelfond J, Javors M, Meeks JJ, McKonkey D, Shu Z-J, Ramamurthy C, Dennet R, Curiel TJ, Svatek RS. Rapamycin enhances BCG-specific γδ T cells during intravesical BCG therapy for non-muscle invasive bladder cancer: a randomized, double-blind study. Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer. In Press 

“A key question when developing any experimental therapeutic is: At what dose is the drug most effective with minimal side effects? In this early phase clinical trial, Dr. Svatek’s laboratory tested a novel treatment approach for patients with bladder cancer by combining ultra-low dose rapamycin with standard of care immune therapy.We showed that the combination is safe and tolerable in patients, and promotes cancer killing effects by bladder γδ T cells. These findings are important because we have recently identified γδ T cells as an immune cell type in bladder that can be targeted by immunotherapy to treat bladder cancer and future studies using this approach long-term are underway,” explained Ryan Reyes, a student in the South Texas Medical Scientist Training Program who is an author in the paper from Dr. Tyler Curiel’s lab, in collaboration with Dr. Niannian Ji and Dr. Neelam Mukherjee from Dr. Svatek’s lab and other scientists/clinicians from UT Health and other institutions.”