# metadata.dc.description[].value
Treballs Finals de Grau de Farmàcia, Facultat de Farmàcia i Ciències de l'Alimentació, Universitat de Barcelona, 2020. Tutor/a: Joan Carles Rodríguez Rubio

# metadata.dc.description.abstract[].value
Over the years, the scientific community has been studying and exploring different
strategies to treat cancer using gene therapy techniques that have culminated in the
development of an immunotherapy called Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cells
therapy.
Recently, two different types of CAR T cell therapies have been approved to treat B cell
malignancies by the FDA and the AEMPS: tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah®) and
axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta®), becoming an important paradigm shift due to their
special characteristics. These medicines are autologous biological medicines where
immune cells, concretely T lymphocytes, are collected from the blood of the patient,
processed and sent to manufacturing facilities. There, gene-editing modification is
performed through viral vectors in order to express certain chimeric antigen receptors in
the cell membrane of the T lymphocytes. Here comes the key to the success of these
revolutionary therapies: these artificial receptors are able to get linked and recognize
specific antigen, CD19, that is expressed in the entire B-cell lineage. Once they
recognize it, T-cell expansion, cytotoxic activity, releasing of cytokines and proinflammatory
substances happen and, therefore, anti-tumour effects are achieved.
In addition, an analysis of the situation in our country related to these therapies will be
performed: the Banc de Sang i Teixits (BST) plays an important role in the manufacturing
process since they collect leukapheresis material, process it and cryopreserve it before
it is shipped to manufacturing facilities and the other way around.
Finally, current challenges of these therapies such as side effects and logistic aspects
will be discussed. Furthermore, the possible future perspectives of these
immunotherapies will be exposed.

# metadata.dc.source[].value
Treballs Finals de Grau (TFG) - Farmàcia