Mustafa Turkoz, PhD, on Rejuvenating Immune Cells With ERA Reprogramming

“We started our journey with rejuvenating T-cells, and we would like to apply that same logic to the other immune cells as well. As of now, with the T-cells, we have shown that when we use ERA reprogramming, which is our platform for rejuvenation by using nuclear reprogramming factors in the mRNA format, we observed that T-cells have enhanced proliferation capacity, enhanced cytotoxicity, and enhanced cytokine production. These T-cells treated with ERA compared to control cells have higher T-cell function, they clear tumors much faster and they're persistent, which potentially is suggesting that we're going to have much better clinical outcomes out of these ERA T-cells with immunotherapies.”

Turn Biotechnologies is focusing on rejuvenating T-cells to better fight disease with its ERA epigenome reprogramming technology. The company has completed in vitro studies and plans to move on to in vivo studies in the first quarter of 2024 and is planning to evaluate rejuvenating other kinds of immune cells in addition to T-cells. Data on the ERA platform’s ability to enhance immune cells were presented at the World Oncology Cell Therapy Congress (WOCTC) held April 25-26 in Boston, Massachusetts, by Mustafa Turkoz, PhD, head, immunology, Turn Biotechnologies.

CGTLive spoke with Turkoz to learn more about the ERA platform and the preclinical data presented at the congress. Turkoz mainly discussedthe immunological investigations with ERA reprogramming but also touched on the other groups at Turn that are investigating the platform for dermatological and retinal indications. He discussed the advantages with safety and the controllable mRNA reprogramming offered by the platform.

Click here to read more coverage of WOCTC 2023.

REFERENCE

Turkoz M. Restoring youthful vigor to cells to fight disease through epigenome reprogramming. Presented at: WOCTC; April 25-26; Boston, Massachusetts