Alicja Copik, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine at Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Central Florida talks about the trial testing if natural killer cells can improve outcomes for patients with COVID-19.
A lot of people may have never heard of the term, natural killer cells. Can you explain what it is?
Alicja Copik: These are the type of white blood cell in our body that have the natural ability to seek and destroy malignant, transforming and virally infected cells. They are a part of the first responder team in the immune system that recognizes and kills virally infected cells or cancer cells.
Is this something that is bioengineered in the lab and then introduced or is it something that our bodies can produce?
Alicja Copik: Our body normally produces these cells, and we all have them. They circulate in our blood and the way they recognize infected or transformed cells is by having a lot of receptors that sense molecules that belong to a virus or indicate stress. They also can recognize our own body cells to not cause damage to our body. It is much like passport control, when they look at your passport to tell if you are who you say you are. They also see dangerous signals and they can do that naturally. But they are not looking for one specific viral-virus or one specific type of cell.
Once they find the bad cells, can you describe how they rid the body of these cells?
Alicja Copik: So, they form what is called lytic granules, and those granules are put into the cell that is being killed, and that activates certain proteins that lead to the self-destruction of the cells.
Is there something that science can do to get those killer cells ramped up, so they are on high alert?
Alicja Copik: Our research group at UCF has developed a particle-based technology to activate these cells, so we can multiply them. So, if you want to use them as a treatment from a donor, you will not have enough to treat patients or you will have to rely on harsh methods to make them grow. We have methods to grow them in the lab to induce their proliferation and to activate them. We use certain molecules and put them on the particles and that activates the natural killer cells. These are cytokines and ligand, and the cells recognize them.
What kinds of cancers or applications for these cells within cancer research are you studying in the lab?
Alicja Copik: Initially we started with acute myeloid leukemia and we found that these cells work very well in killing acute myeloid leukemia. There are other groups that have also done a lot of work in that area and now we are expanding to solid tumor applications. Thanks to funding from Florida Department of Health, we are looking at lung cancer and we have also done a lot of work on ovarian cancer, but those cells can be applied to a variety of different tumors just because of the way they function.
In addition to cancer, you mentioned earlier these can also attack viruses that are in the body.
Alicja Copik: There is a lot of evidence and research from various groups that they can recognize and mediate our antiviral response to different viral diseases. The flu would be one, but there are many other viral applications. So, there is strong interest to develop them for fighting viral infections. In some clinical trials where they were applied in leukemia patients, it was observed that the natural killer cells application was associated with lower incidence of viral reactiation -, so they could potentially be applied to fight viruses or viral diseases.
What is the benefit to having the natural killer cells as opposed to introducing something foreign into the body?
Alicja Copik: These cells have evolved to recognize and kill viruses so there is a lot of evolution that made them good and they do not just kill one virus, but multiple viruses. They are natural but of course, we need to have a way to use them therapeutically and now we are at the point where that might be possible.
Can you give us an example of how they might be used therapeutically?
Alicja Copik: The nice part about natural killer cells is that they can be obtained from a donor. You do not have to use your own cells because they are able to recognize healthy cells and leave them untouched. Because of that, they do not cause an auto-immune reaction. So, they can be taken from a donor, grown in the laboratory with the particle methodology that we have developed, and then put in the patient. So, they can be cryopreserved and delivered to a patient at the facility. In general Natural Killer cells, based on clinical trials, that were conducted we have seen that they do not cause side effects and there is no negative effect to applying these cells.
Because the body recognizes it, what kind of side effects could people have?
If you are getting donor cells would it be introduced like a vaccination?
Alicja Copik: It is interesting possibility, but I don’t think it is currently being considered. It would depend on the type of the disease, but typically it would be applied as a treatment as an infusion with an IV application.
Could you describe for me what your students are working on in the lab?
Alicja Copik: Right now, they are studying how tumors can evade natural killer cells or natural killer cell recognition, and they are testing methods of how to get around that evasion and how to increase the potential of these cells. Today, they are mixing the natural killer cells and tumor cells and then we have a video-microscopy based system where they can see the natural killer cells killing the tumor cells, and then we quantify that and determine how good the cells are.
I believe you can freeze these for future use. Do you have anything that is cryopreserved in the lab?
Alicja Copik: We routinely cryopreserve NK cells and other cells. We store the cells for use in experiments and we have a cryotanks in which they are being stored.
Are the current cancer trials still in mouse or rodent models or are they in human clinical trials?
Alicja Copik: There are clinical trials of natural killer cells already in humans. There have been already some completed phase I trials and some ongoing phase II trials.
Is there anything I did not ask you about the natural killer cells that you want people to know?
Alicja Copik: I think they are an amazing cell type that has huge potential for the future treatment of cancer and potential viral diseases. So, we are excited. This is just the start of the journey because there is much more we can do, and these cells can do for us.
Can you describe for me what it looks like and how you can tell whether these cells are evading or doing the job they are supposed to be doing?
Alicja Copik: We put a marker in the tumor cells, so they look colorful on the video, so we know which ones are the bad guys and which are the good guys. If you see the bad guys being killed, they lose their color, then we know the cells worked. If that does not happen, we know that they evaded it and we put in different amounts of the natural killer cells. We want them to work and be able to do the job with fewer of them. If we achieve that, we know that they are working well. There are already some FDA-approved oncology approaches such as immuno-oncology approaches that we can potentially combine with NK cells that might work in synergy. So, by combining with the natural killers, already approved treatments can be potentially better leveraged to work for greater number of patients.
Interview conducted by Ivanhoe Broadcast News.
END OF INTERVIEW
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