A professor with the University of Houston Cullen College of
Engineering has won a $2.1 million grant to study the best ways
to modify human immune cells to fight against cancer. Navin
Varadarajan, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular
engineering, won the grant from the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) and its National Cancer Institute to conduct this
immunotherapy study. Immunotherapy, one of the most promising
avenues of cancer research and treatment, involves a process in
which human immune cells are modified and trained to fight hard-
to-treat tumors. Varadarajan's research focuses on engineered T
cells, immune cells that, among other functions, recognize and
attack disease cells. One immunotherapy approach involves
modifying naturally occurring T cells to fight cancer cells.
Known as chimeric antigen receptor T cells, or CAR T cells for
short, these cells have proven effective in combating some
cancers that are particularly difficult to treat. "In response
to tumor recognition, CAR T cel