Immunotherapy involves the activation of the immune system, which has natural anti-tumour defence mechanisms. The most advanced and state-of-the-art form of this method is CAR-T therapy. Here, each therapeutic dose is individually produced for the patient using the patient's own T lymphocytes. It requires systematic monitoring of progress and subsequent recovery. Currently, cytometric panels and diagnostic tests are used for this purpose, which require suitably qualified personnel, reagents and take a lot of time. As CAR-T is an expensive and lengthy procedure, a fast and reliable tool for its monitoring could speed up diagnosis and help doctors decide whether to discontinue or continue therapy and assess its progress.

– Our approach addresses the need for non-invasive, fast and low-cost monitoring of personalised CAR-T therapy – explains Martyna Mazur, MSc, team leader of QPI4MED, a PhD student from the Faculty of Mechatronics at the Warsaw University of Technology. – Compared to competitive solutions, we propose a specialised tool based on an intuitive application, thanks to which the analysis of results will become simpler, faster and will not require experience in optics and photonics.

The young researchers' idea is a combination of digital holographic microscopy – a non-invasive, quantitative imaging technique – and an intuitive tool for monitoring lymphocyte status during cellular immunotherapy. The idea won ex aequo first place during Tech-Athon 2023 – a marathon of work on innovative technological solutions with implementation potential, aimed at PhD students at the Warsaw University of Technology. Thanks to the prize of PLN 80,000, the team has funds to further develop the project.

– Our work at the moment is focused on creating a prototype – says Martyna Mazur, MSc. – The first stage involves collecting data and developing data processing algorithms for our digital holographic microscopy system. The algorithms will include solutions based on neural networks and classical approaches. We want to develop a method for recovering phase maps free of artefacts and noise and implement an algorithm for segmenting lymphocytes together with an algorithm for monitoring their status.

The solution combines digital holographic microscopy and a cell state monitoring tool

In the next stage, the young researchers want to focus on the development of an intuitive application to support the monitoring of CAR-T therapy.

– In the future, we want to expand our activities by introducing further modules into the application aimed at other biomedical applications – Martyna Mazur, MSc, points out.

The QPI4MED team is made up of Martyna Mazur, MSc, Maria Baczewska, MSc, Michal Gontarz, MSc, Michal Ziemczonok, MSc (all from the Faculty of Mechatronics at the Warsaw University of Technology, Institute of Micromechanics and Photonics) and Paulina Laskowska, MSc, from the Institute of Haematology and Transfusion Medicine.