Scientist at Mass General Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School Awarded xCELLigence Immunotherapy Research Grant
SAN DIEGO (PRWEB) November 01, 2018 -- Dr. Bryan Choi, a postdoctoral fellow in the Dr. Marcela V. Maus lab at Massachusetts General Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School, has been awarded the 2018 xCELLigence Immunotherapy Research Grant by ACEA Biosciences. Cancer immunotherapy, recently recognized by the 2018 Nobel Prize Committee for Medicine, is a promising form of treatment designed to harness a patient’s own immune system to attack tumor cells. Although the clinical response to these therapies has been remarkable, developing new therapies that are consistently effective in the majority of patients and cancer types has been challenging for immuno-oncology researchers.
The chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells developed by Dr. Choi’s group are specific to a tumor mutation of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFRvIII). In previous clinical trials, the CART-EGFRvIII cells were efficiently localized to intracerebral sites beyond the blood-brain-barrier (BBB) to eliminate EGFRvIII glioma. Dr. Choi’s research proposal is to modify these chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells to secrete bispecific T-Cell engagers (BiTEs), with a goal to develop a more effective immunotherapy for patients with glioblastoma (GBM). The proposal was selected by the ACEA Research Grant Committee for its experimental design quality, and the exciting potential to further advance treatment of this deadly disease.
The Immunotherapy Research Grant will provide Dr. Choi with access to the xCELLigence Real Time Cell Analysis SP instrument, and will include consumables for 6 months. During this time, Dr. Choi’s team will be testing the hypothesis that EGFRvIII CAR-T cells designed to secrete BiTEs (CAR.BiTE) will “enhance CAR therapy by reversing regulatory T cell mediated immune suppression and lead to potent and durable antitumor responses against even heterogeneous tumor.” With the xCELLigence RTCA platform, the kinetics of tumor cell killing by the engineered CAR.BiTE, and its effects on regulatory T cell and CAR-T cell cytotoxic activity, will be measured with the highly sensitive ACEA technology.
“We are excited to see more young researchers adopting the xCELLigence technology for CAR-T research and other immuno-oncology related studies. We are expecting great data from this study, resulting in further collaboration between Mass General Cancer Center and ACEA Biosciences,” stated Dr. Yama Abassi, Vice President of ACEA Biosciences.
ACEA Biosciences is now accepting applications for the next xCELLigence Research Grant funding period, which is open to all cell analysis applications. For 6 months, the research grant winner will be provided access to the xCELLigence Real Time Cell Analysis DP instrument, consumables, and consultation. Click here to apply.
About xCELLigence® Real Time Cell Analysis (RTCA)
ACEA’s xCELLigence RTCA instruments are being used in both academia and industry for life science applications ranging from cancer immunotherapy, bacterial biofilms, vaccine development and cardiotoxicity testing. With the xCELLigence technology, scientists can non-invasively monitor the behavior of cells by quantifying cell proliferation, morphology change, and attachment quality in a label-free, real-time manner.
About ACEA Biosciences
Founded in 2002, ACEA Biosciences is a pioneer in the development and commercialization of high performance cell analysis platforms for life science research. ACEA’s xCELLigence® Real-Time Cell Analysis instruments and NovoCyte® Quanteon flow cytometers are used in pre-clinical drug discovery and development, toxicology, safety pharmacology, and basic academic research. More than 2,500 instruments have been placed globally, and have been used in more than 1,800 peer-reviewed publications.
For more information visit: http://www.aceabio.com.
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For further information please contact:
ACEA Biosciences, Inc.
Dr. Jeff Xue
Phone: 858-299-8023
email: jxue(at)aceabio(dot)com
Jeff Xue, Ph.D., ACEA Biosciences, Inc., http://www.aceabio.com, +1 8587240928 Ext: 3075, [email protected]
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