Paulina Velasquez, MD, on Finding New Targets for Cell Therapy

“I think in the session, a lot of emphasis was put on the importance of targeting more than 1 antigen and finding the best possible antigen. But it was also a very heterogenous session in that we had other approaches, such as using regulatory T cells as a platform to express CARs, but also genetically modifying neutrophil progenitors to try to target diseases such as chronic granulomatous disease. It was interesting to see these different approaches.”

A session at the 64th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting, held December 10-12, 2022, in New Orleans, Louisiana, focused on new preclinical research in cell therapy aiming to address issues such as graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) and T-cell exhaustion. The session was moderated by Paulina Velasquez, MD, assistant member, Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy, St, Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

CGTLive spoke with Velasquez to learn more about the approaches presented in the session and emerging trends in cell therapy research. She pointed out some notable approaches, such as the presentation by Xianliang Rui, PhD, from Harvard Medical School, that focused on a novel human OX40L-CAR-Treg to control T cell alloreactivity and GvHD; and the presentation by Nils Wellhausen, a PhD candidate from University of Pennsylvania, that focused on a CD45-targeting CAR CRISPR-edited to eliminate fratricide.

Click here to read more coverage of the ASH 2022 meeting.

REFERENCE

Velasquez MP. Cellular Immunotherapies: Basic and Translational II. Presented at: 64th ASH Annual Meeting, December 10-12, 2022, New Orleans, Louisiana. Session 703.