Tumor-antigen-primed polyclonal T cells

Class

Autologous non-gene-modified T-cell therapy (CAPRI platform) — no single fixed molecular target by design

Notes

Source: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT07096882 ; cytocraft.cn news (SDT-M001; researched 2026-08-08)

This approach uses a patient's own T cells, a class of immune cells that recognize diseased cells through receptors that bind fragments of protein (antigens) displayed on a cell's surface by molecules called MHC. In this platform, T cells are collected from a patient, exposed outside the body to tumor-associated antigens so that clones already able to recognize those antigens expand and mature, and then reinfused without any genetic modification. Because tumors typically display many different antigens rather than one, priming a polyclonal population—many T-cell clones with different receptor specificities—aims to attack the tumor from multiple molecular angles at once, which may reduce the chance that a tumor evades treatment by losing a single antigen. This contrasts with approaches such as CAR-T cell therapy, which engineer T cells to recognize one predefined target through an artificial receptor. The rationale for a non-engineered, polyclonal strategy is to preserve the T cell's natural, MHC-restricted recognition machinery and its broader antigen coverage, while avoiding the manufacturing and regulatory complexity of genetic engineering. This class of mechanism is relevant across solid and hematologic cancers where antigen heterogeneity and immune evasion limit the durability of single-target therapies.