Your Contributions at Work
Cell Therapy Lab Expands
Contributions to the Foundation funded the expansion of the stem cell laboratory and a more comprehensive Cell Therapy Core Facility. Led by William Janssen, Ph.D., the laboratories will be used to test therapies in patients.
To test the therapies in patients requires large-scale production in a facility that meets U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards. There are now four interconnecting components:
- hematopoietic progenitor cell collection and processing
- tumor vaccine cell production and engineering
- cell isolation
- immune reconstitution/cell response
Stem Cell Processing Laboratory - This laboratory processes and stores cells for blood and morrow transplantation. It will be used in conjunction with the Cell Isolation Laboratory to provide more extensively engineered blood and marrow grafts, with the goal of deriving greater therapeutic benefit from transplant therapy.
Tumor Vaccine/Cell Production and Engineering Laboratory - This laboratory grows tumor cells and dendritic cells for anti-cancer vaccines, expands cell populations and performs other cellular manipulations, such as gene insertion, to enhance the therapeutic activity of cell therapy products before administering to the patient.
Cell Isolation Laboratory - This laboratory purifies therapeutically valuable cells from mixed cell populations for use in various therapies, including cancer vaccines and stem cell transplants.
Immune Reconstitution/Cell Response Laboratory - This laboratory performs a series of sophisticated measurements of patients' immune systems to determine the effectiveness of cell therapies and also may be used to monitor patient immunity following other forms of therapy.