L1CAM

This phase I trial studies the side effects and best dose of autologous CD8+ and CD4+ lentivirally transduced to express L1CAM-specific chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) and EGFRt mutation specific T cells and to see how well they work in treating patients with small cell neuroendocrine prostate cancer (SCNPC) that has spread to nearby tissue or lymph nodes (locally advanced) and cannot be removed by surgery (unresectable) or has spread from where it first started (primary site) to other places in the body (metastatic). CAR T-cell therapy is a type of treatment in which a patient's T cells (a type of immune system cell) are changed in the laboratory so they will attack tumor cells. T cells are taken from a patient's blood. Then the gene for a special receptor that binds to a certain protein on the patient's tumor cells is added to the T cells in the laboratory. Some solid tumor cells have an L1CAM protein on their surface, and T cells can be modified with a receptor, called a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR), to help recognize this protein and kill these tumor cells. Large numbers of the CAR T cells are grown in the laboratory and given to the patient by infusion for treatment of certain cancers. These L1CAM mutation specific T cells may help the body's immune system identify and kill L1CAM locally advanced and unresectable or metastatic small cell neuroendocrine prostate cancers' tumor cells.

Patients with recurrent or refractory neuroblastoma are resistance to conventional chemotherapy. For this reason, the investigators are attempting to use T cells obtained directly from the patient, which can be genetically modified to express a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR). The CAR enables the T cell to recognize and kill the neuroblastoma cell through the recognition of CD171, a protein expressed of the surface of the neuroblastoma cell in patients with neuroblastoma. This is a phase 1 study designed to determine the maximum tolerated dose of the CAR+ T cells.