On May 16, 2022 Caring Cross, a 501c(3) non-profit dedicated to accelerating the development of advanced medicines and enabling access to cures for all patients, everywhere, reported that Rimas Orentas, Ph.D., Scientific Director of Caring Cross, and Kim Anthony-Gonda, Ph.D., Director of Cell & Gene Therapy at Caring Cross, will be presenting two posters at the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy Annual Meeting (ASGCT) (Free ASGCT Whitepaper) 2022 (Press release, Caring Cross, MAY 16, 2022, View Source [SID1234614733]). The meeting will be a hybrid event with participants online and in-person in Washington, D.C., on May 16-22, 2022.
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Details of the posters are as follows:
Poster 1 CAR T-Cell Antigen-Non-Specific Killing (CTAK), CAR-T NK-Like
Killing, and CD22 CAR-T Mediated Killing Are All Optimized by
Bryostatin Treatment of Pre-B Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia Cell
Lines
Session: Cancer – Immunotherapy, Cancer Vaccines I
Board No.: M-213
Date: May 16th, 2022
Time: 1730-1830 EDT
Speaker: Dr. Rimas Orentas
Poster 2 IND-enabling Studies Towards an Open Phase I/IIa Trial to
Evaluate the Safety and Efficacy of Anti-HIV DuoCAR-T Cell
Therapy
Session: Gene & Cell Therapy Trials in Progress
Board No.: Tu-299
Date: May 17th, 2022
Time: 1730-1830 EDT
Speaker: Dr. Kim Anthony-Gonda
Register View Source
The first poster details the results of a study conducted in partnership with the University of Washington Department of Pediatrics and the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer Research, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, which defined a new property of chimeric antigen receptor therapy (CAR-T). When the CAR-T cells are activated by the signals used to produce therapeutic cell populations, they were found to mediate non-CAR-directed cytolysis, which the investigators termed CAR T-cell antigen-non-specific killing (CTAK). Importantly, the mediated killing from the CAR-T manufacturing process is distinguishable from that exhibited by natural killer (NK) cells – white blood cells that target tumors and cells infected by viruses – or lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cells, those stimulated by cytokines alone to kill tumor cells.
"This discovery is a significant milestone in our mission to increase the efficacy of CAR-T therapies," commented Dr. Orentas. "Increasing our knowledge of how bryostatin effects are disease-type specific, even within hematologic malignancies, will contribute to our development of curative therapies. Moreover, many of the side-effects attributed to CAR-T may be due to CTAK activity. We are excited to share our findings at ASGCT (Free ASGCT Whitepaper) and use this opportunity to collaborate with others and strengthen the efforts of the Caring Cross network to provide place of care infrastructure for effective gene therapies to areas where it is most needed."
The second poster highlights results from an IND-enabling study examining whether Caring Cross’ Anti-HIV DuoCAR-T cell technology can travel to the spleen of humanized mice with active HIV infection and inhibit replication of the virus. Data from the study concluded that intravenously administered Anti-HIV DuoCAR-T cells travelled from the peripheral blood to the spleen and demonstrated potent and durable suppression of HIV replication after a single injection of Anti-HIV DuoCAR-T cells.
"It is the Caring Cross mission to create accessible, curative therapies. There is currently no such cure for HIV, only long-term drug therapies," stated Dr. Anthony-Gonda. "Our Anti-HIV DuoCAR-T cell therapeutic candidate is designed to be a curative treatment option that eliminates HIV-infected cells and safely suppresses HIV infection long-term in the body after a single infusion of Anti-HIV DuoCAR-T cells. We are grateful to ASGCT (Free ASGCT Whitepaper) for hosting our presentation, we are determined to investigate our technology further in a Phase 1/2a clinical trial."