The work was led by experts from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center and has been published in Cell.

As proof of concept, the team developed a CAR T targeting glycoprotein non-metastatic melanoma protein B (GPNMB), the top candidate nominated by this AI-driven approach, which showed robust tumor-killing activity in mouse models of multiple cancer types.

CAR T cell therapy, a personalized form of immunotherapy that was developed at Penn Medicine and has revolutionized care for several types of blood cancer over the last decade, is increasingly being tested in other solid cancers and even noncancerous conditions. However, identifying the best antigens for the CARs to target remains a challenge in applying CAR T cell therapy beyond blood cancers.