'Natural killer' cells target paediatric sarcomas

Paediatric sarcomas, including Ewing sarcoma, osteosarcoma and rhabdomyosarcoma, represent 5–10% of all childhood cancers and are responsible for more deaths than brain cancer, melanoma, leukaemia and lymphoma — with patients in advanced stages of the disease having an approximately 20% five-year survival rate. Now, a team led by Associate Professor Fernando Guimaraes of the University of Queensland’s (UQ) Frazer Institute has developed a new therapeutic strategy that uses engineered immune cells, called natural killer cells, to target and destroy sarcoma tumours.

“Sarcomas can metastasise from the tumour to other parts of the body like lungs or brain, making the disease hard to cure. It is brutal and among the leading cause of death in Queensland children suffering from solid cancers,” Guimaraes said. “Research into these cancers has been underdeveloped and underfunded. This has the potential to be lifesaving and life changing for many patients.” It is also believed that the treatment could have impact on other hard-to-cure diseases such as triple negative breast cancer.

Associate Professor Wayne Nicholls, who is Clinical Director at UQ’s Ian Frazer Centre for Children’s Immunotherapy Research and Director of Oncology Services at Queensland Children’s Hospital, said the research was very promising and addressed an unmet need. “Sarcoma is the biggest killer of people aged 10 to 30,” Nicholls said. “These cancers are harder to treat with a poorer prognosis and there has been no improvement in survival for 40 years.” Nicholls added: “At the moment, there are really no novel therapies available for paediatric solid tumours. This is a significant step forward towards a novel therapy that could be used for patients.”

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‘Enhancement of anti-sarcoma immunity by NK cells engineered with mRNA for expression of a EphA2-targeted CAR’, a 2025 paper on this research, has been published open access in Clinical and Translational Medicine and you can read it at doi.org/10.1002/ctm2.70140.

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Image credit: iStock.com/luismmolina