Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects (NSERC partnered)

Emerging cultured cell therapies have the potential to treat or cure multiple degenerative and fatal diseases, and hundreds of cell immunotherapy clinical trials are currently underway. The first two immune cell (T-cell) therapies approved in 2017 are highly effective, and can treat blood-cell cancers for which no treatment options remained. In contrast to using chemotherapy to kill cancer cells, these T-cell immunotherapies are based on amplifying natural human defences to kill cancer cells. This proposal is focussed on producing T cells that suppress other immune cells going after the wrong target, such as in transplant rejection or autoimmune disorders. These cell therapies could replace the use of immunosuppressive drugs that are often ineffective and have many negative side effects. Although cell immunotherapy is poised to revolutionize medical treatments, many challenges must be overcome to make these therapies a reality for the many patients needing them. As the culture of T cells coming from human donors is very complex, we must increase our understanding and control of the processes used to produce these therapeutic cells. This is the focus of our project. We will improve the production of therapeutic cells so that hundreds of patients can be treated with each cell donor. We also seek to enable networked Canadian skills and resources to facilitate clinical trials. Through reducing the cell production costs and increasing the number of cells produced for treatment, we will contribute toward reducing overall costs, to make these treatments economically feasible for our healthcare system and widely available to save lives. Our development of T-cell manufacturing technology will be systematically networked with Canadian cell therapy manufacturing facilities to broadly inform this and other promising clinical treatments that depend on cell manufacturing.