Droplet Digital PCR For Safe And Effective CAR T-Cell Therapies

Mark White, Digital Biology Center, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc.

According to a recent Global Newswire release, the global market for CAR T-cell therapies is expected to grow 34.5% every year to a total of nearly $8 billion by 2026. CAR T cells are gaining popularity because they represent a new generation of personalized cancer therapies that use genetic modification to attack tumors. While the therapeutic promise of CAR T cells is high, the process of generating these cells is complex and, therefore, requires close monitoring of safety and effectiveness using quality control technologies.

According to the World Health Organization, a CAR T cell should contain between one and four copies of the CAR transgene. If the cell does not contain any copies, it will be ineffective, and if it contains five or more, it may trigger an inflammatory response that can cause organ failure and death.

Many laboratories use quantitative PCR (qPCR) as a tool that quantify DNA when determining the number of CAR copies per cell in a batch of CAR T cells. However, this technique is not accurate or sensitive enough to guarantee the quality of a CAR T cell. Learn why a more sensitive method for quantifying CAR gene copies in T cells is Droplet Digital PCR which uses a partitioning technique that helps it overcome some of qPCR’s limitations.