University of Ottawa

Purpose

Chimeric Antigen Receptor-T (CAR-T) therapy is a revolutionary treatment in which T-cells are genetically engineered to enhance their ability to target and destroy cancerous cells. While CAR-T therapy is highly effective in hematological tumors, it is also very expensive, is associated with significant toxicities like Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS) and Immune effector Cell-Associated Neurotoxicity Syndrome (ICANS), and has made little progress outside of blood cancers. To overcome these limitations, we are developing CAR-NK cells as an off-the-shelf therapy. Our preclinical studies have clearly demonstrated the potential of anti-BCMA CAR-NK cells in treating multiple myeloma. To translate these exciting results to clinical application, we will focus on developing a large-scale production process that emulates the generation of GMP-grade CAR-NK cells. The immediate goal of this project is to create Standard Operating Procedures for large-scale CAR-NK cell production and release assays, which will be transferred to a GMP facility for clinical trials in Canada.