City of Hope obtains United States patent.

City of Hope (Duarte, CA) has patented genetically engineered, CE7-specific redirected immune cells expressing a cell surface protein having an extracellular domain comprising a receptor which is specific for CE7, an intracellular signaling domain, and a transmembrane domain, and methods of use for such cells for cellular immunotherapy of CE7+ neuroblastoma. In one embodiment, the immune cell is a T cell and the cell surface protein is a single chain FvFc:.zeta. receptor where Fv designates the V.sub.H and V.sub.L chains of a single chain monoclonal antibody to CE7 linked by peptide, Fc represents a hinge-C.sub.H2-C.sub.H3 region of a human IgG.sub.1, and .zeta. represents the intracellular signaling domain of the zeta chain of human CD3. DNA constructs encoding a chimeric T-cell receptor and a method of making a redirected T cell expressing a chimeric T cell receptor by electroporation using naked DNA encoding the receptor are also disclosed. (US 7,354,762)