New program to obtain cord blood NK cell therapy for hard-to-treat cancer initiated

2024-06-18

David Langlais (Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Institute of Genomic Medicine) and Michel Tremblay (Rosalind & Morris Goodman Cancer Institute) are leading a new $5.8 M project funded under the Genome Canada Genome Canada GAPP program to obtain cord blood NK cell therapy for hard-to-treat cancer.

The project will use genomics solutions to improve the clinical management of hard-to-treat cancers like AML through CB-NK cell therapy. It will establish a comprehensive resource for “off-the-shelf” NK cell immunotherapy.

Novel methodologies will enable the processing, storage and recovery of CB-NK cells; optimisation and simplification of their clinical use; and national distribution of the therapeutic CB-NK cell bank to treat a larger cohort of cancer patients.

The team will develop the protocol/documentation for Health Canada approval of phase I trials to bring these therapies to the clinic, followed by a multi-institutional clinical trial with the Canadian Cancer Trial Group.

The program will identify biomarkers cord blood NK cell anti-tumor quality to develop an off-the-shelf NK cell therapy for AML (and other cancers)

Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML) and other cancers still have poor prognosis and are not eligible or do not respond well to immuno or CAR-T cell therapies.
Natural Killer (NK) cells have an MHC-independent tumor cell killing ability
Sourcing NK cells from cord blood has many advantages: greater cytolytic activity; greater proliferative potential; no risk to donor; simpler donor-patient matching
CB-NK cells’ activity and survival can be increased and sustained by proprietary small molecule inhibitors.