Scientists may have identified a way to help the body’s immune cells fight cancer for longer, potentially strengthening some existing treatments. The approach centers on temporarily boosting a protein called p53 while preparing immune cells in a laboratory.

Researchers at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center found that this temporary boost helped specially prepared immune cells remain stronger and kill more melanoma cells during laboratory experiments. The study was published in Frontiers in Immunology.

The research focused on T cells, immune cells that help the body fight disease. Some cancer treatments involve taking a patient’s T cells, modifying them in a laboratory to recognize cancer and returning them to the body to attack tumors.

A major obstacle is that the modified cells can eventually become exhausted. According to the UCLA researchers, this exhaustion makes the cells less effective at continuing their fight against cancer.

To investigate a possible solution, the researchers treated human T cells with an experimental drug called navtemadlin. The drug temporarily increases the activity of p53, a protein known for helping to prevent cancer.

T cells treated with navtemadlin displayed fewer signs of exhaustion and had more energy. They also developed characteristics that could help them remain active for a longer period.

When researchers tested the treated T cells against melanoma cells in the laboratory, the results were encouraging. The treated cells were significantly more effective at killing the cancer cells than T cells that had not received the drug.

Kien Vuu, a Los Angeles based physician who is triple board certified and a former UCLA assistant clinical professor, said T cell exhaustion is one of the biggest challenges encountered with these treatments. Vuu was not involved in the research.

“After repeated encounters with cancer, they become 'exhausted' and lose their ability to multiply and attack,” Vuu told Fox News Digital.

Vuu said the experimental strategy could provide a relatively simple method for strengthening treatments that already rely on prepared T cells. The drug would be added while a patient’s cells are being prepared in the laboratory.

“The practical appeal is simplicity,” he said.

“Rather than adding another genetic modification , this approach adds a drug during the manufacturing step, when a patient's T cells are being prepared in the lab.”

If the strategy succeeds in additional research, Vuu said it could potentially help T cells remain effective for longer. He noted that this could be particularly relevant when treating solid tumors.

The findings remain preliminary because the experiments involved human cells in a laboratory rather than patients. The approach has not yet been tested in animals or people.

“This is early, laboratory-stage research,” Vuu acknowledged. “The experiments were done with human cells in a dish against melanoma cells, not in animals or people.”

According to Vuu, researchers will need to evaluate the approach in animals and in other types of cancer before it can advance into clinical trials. Those additional studies would further test whether the laboratory findings can move toward patient treatment.

The amount of navtemadlin used will also require careful study. UCLA researchers found that higher doses caused more T cells to die, while lower doses produced the desired effects without substantially reducing the number of healthy cells.

“Dosing is especially important,” Vuu said. “The researchers found that too much p53 activation actually killed more of the T cells, so getting the balance right will be critical.”

The research therefore points to a possible way of helping prepared T cells resist exhaustion, but substantial testing remains. As Vuu cautioned, “Patients shouldn't expect this in the clinic soon, but it's a promising new direction worth following.”

The findings currently remain limited to laboratory experiments involving human T cells and melanoma cells.