Blog | HemaCare

The new FT516 immunotherapy is the first iPSC-derived therapy approved for clinical testing in the world and may provide a treatment for many different types of cancers.

A collaboration between the University of Minnesota and Fate Therapeutics will begin clinical trials for a novel “off-the-shelf” targeted natural killer (NK) cell cancer immunotherapy derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). iPSCs are adult cells that have been genetically reprogrammed so that they regain the ability to differentiate into any cell type, making them pluripotent (similar to embryonic stem cells). The new NK cell therapy, FT516, is developed from genetically engineered human iPSCs with enhanced anti-tumor activity.

A drug used to treat acetaminophen hepatotoxicity may give hope to an effective treatment for FVH caused by liver-impairing viruses, including hepatitis A.

Fulminant viral hepatitis (FVH) is a form of acute liver failure caused by a virus and characterized by severe impairment of liver function. Primarily, children and young adults are affected, and the condition is usually fatal unless liver transplantation is implemented early enough. FVH tends to occur in people who are healthy and without any history of previous liver disease and progresses rapidly leading to encephalopathy and death. Given the treatment challenges and lack of a full understanding of how FVH develops, a group of scientists from Rockefeller University in New York analyzed the DNA of an 11-year-old girl who died from FVH.

A collaborative research effort on the part of 3 top-tier pharmaceutical companies cite using HemaCare sourced healthy donor PBMCs for their work on developing an allogeneic CAR T cell therapy. ^[1] CAR T therapies are among the most promising new cancer treatments approved by the FDA. These therapies have had remarkable success rates in people suffering from aggressive leukemia and lymphoma, who would otherwise be left without treatment options. The number of people who can be treated with this type of therapy is limited, however. CAR T treatment is an autologous therapy, relying on collecting and modifying a patient’s own T cells to fight their disease. Since cancer patients often suffer from a compromised immune system, it’s quite difficult to collect enough healthy T cells for treatment. Several research groups have been looking for a way to make an allogeneic CAR T cell treatment, in which T cells can be sourced from healthy donors.

During the previous segment of this blog series, cell collection experts at HemaCare reviewed apheresis best practices in donor recruitment, apheresis technology, and cell handling techniques. This week, we define the difference between purity and yield, and examine their contribution to starting material quality.

Welcome to the 2nd segment of our blog series on what impacts cell therapy starting material quality. This week, we examine what comprises apheresis best practices, which are critical to the quality of apheresis materials.