CD33 / CD70

Class

Off-the-shelf invariant NKT (iNKT) cell injection (dual-target)

Pathway

iNKT cell-mediated cytotoxicity against CD33/CD70-expressing AML cells

CD33 and CD70 are two cell-surface proteins frequently found on the malignant blasts of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), including in some cases on the rarer leukemic stem cells thought to drive relapse. CD33 is a myeloid lineage marker also present on healthy blood-forming cells, while CD70 is normally restricted to activated immune cells but becomes aberrantly expressed on many AML cells. Targeting both simultaneously, rather than either alone, is intended to reduce the chance that leukemic cells escape treatment by losing a single antigen and to capture a broader swath of the tumor's heterogeneous cell population. The therapeutic approach here uses invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells, an innate-like immune cell type, engineered to recognize these two markers and manufactured in advance from a single donor source so they can be given to any eligible patient without individualized cell collection. Once infused, these cells identify and destroy AML cells displaying CD33 and/or CD70. This class of mechanism is relevant broadly to hematologic cancers where antigen loss and disease heterogeneity limit the durability of single-target immunotherapies, and where an off-the-shelf cellular product could shorten treatment timelines compared with patient-derived cell therapies.