The role of cytokine profiling in a changing cell therapy testing landscape

August 6, 2024

Nick Dupuis, PhD

The cell therapy landscape is evolving at unprecedented pace, with an increasingly complex and diversified catalogue of candidates now reaching the clinic, and urgency to bring new therapies to the market.

Together, these trends are putting an increasing burden on clinical testing programs.

In our recent Cell Therapy Trends Report, our experts discuss in more detail how clinical testing strategies are accommodating these rapid development strategies, as well as what that could mean for key clinical testing areas.

One of these key testing areas — the focus of this blog — is cytokine profiling.

Why is cytokine profiling so important for cell therapy clinical testing?

Throughout cell therapy development, cytokine profiling assays provide a report on various pharmacodynamic aspects of the therapeutic agent, including proliferation and activation of CAR T cells, as well as broader activation of endogenous immune components. Further expansion of CAR T populations can also lead to increased levels of cytokines in peripheral blood as hallmarks of a broader systemic inflammatory response. Unfortunately, this can lead to adverse events in various organ systems including the central nervous system (CNS).

Today, several immunoassay platforms are used for cytokine profiling, each differing in detection signal and advantages for different testing scales and hypotheses. The most common platforms are:

  • Meso Scale Discovery® (MSD): MSD assays use electrochemiluminescent labels and enable ultra-sensitive detection
  •  Olink® PEA Technology: this technology combines an antibody-based immunoassay with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to provide high-throughput multi-plex analysis
  • Ella™: a next-generation, automated benchtop ELISA multiplexing system that delivers high-speed precision with minimal user input

So, what insights can these assays give to developers, exactly?

When deployed in early clinical phases, cytokine profiling assays can provide crucial insight into the temporal dynamics of immune cell activation and adverse effects, such as cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS). Combined with other assays (such as cell enumeration, cell phenotyping, and VCN determination), cytokine profiling can also support decision making on optimal dosing levels, reducing the reliance on the maximum tolerable dose.

The future of cytokine profiling: emerging roles and applications

As cell therapies diversify in complexity, target, and agent, the roles and applications of cytokine profiling in cell therapy testing are set to change in several ways.

Assessing novel secondary mechanisms

For every element added to a cell construct, monitoring of a new biomarker or signature is needed to show that the addition has the intended effect in the body. Cytokine profiling is likely to help here, potentially playing a key role in evaluating the secondary mechanisms of next-generation construct designs such as CAR T cell armoring.

Understanding the impact of patient immune status

Another emerging application of cytokine profiling is understanding baseline cytokine signatures that correlate with clinically relevant parameters. With these signatures, researchers can better understand how a patient’s immune status influences the quality and action of cell therapy. Naturally, such knowledge could have far-reaching impacts. For example, insight into how patient health affects therapy efficacy will be paramount for more confidently evaluating therapies approved as earlier-line treatments — treatments that operate in the context of a less depleted immune system.

Staying abreast of trends in cell therapy clinical testing

Keen to find out more about the current and anticipated future applications of cytokine profiling and other key testing areas? Our experts discuss all this and more in our Cell Therapy Trends Report.

Download the report for free today.

Alternatively, contact our team to speak to an expert about your cell therapy needs.

About the author: 

author photo

Nick Dupuis is a Senior Director of Scientific Business Development at CellCarta and has a background in in proteomics and biophysical measurement. He has held various roles in industry including as a scientist in LDT/IVD product and applications development, and business development for emerging analytical platforms. At CellCarta he leads commercialization initiatives touching on multiomic applications for biomarkers in cell therapy and pathways to support companion diagnostic development.

The role of cytokine profiling in a changing cell therapy testing landscape

August 6, 2024

Nick Dupuis, PhD

The cell therapy landscape is evolving at unprecedented pace, with an increasingly complex and diversified catalogue of candidates now reaching the clinic, and urgency to bring new therapies to the market.

Together, these trends are putting an increasing burden on clinical testing programs.

In our recent Cell Therapy Trends Report, our experts discuss in more detail how clinical testing strategies are accommodating these rapid development strategies, as well as what that could mean for key clinical testing areas.

One of these key testing areas — the focus of this blog — is cytokine profiling.

Why is cytokine profiling so important for cell therapy clinical testing?

Throughout cell therapy development, cytokine profiling assays provide a report on various pharmacodynamic aspects of the therapeutic agent, including proliferation and activation of CAR T cells, as well as broader activation of endogenous immune components. Further expansion of CAR T populations can also lead to increased levels of cytokines in peripheral blood as hallmarks of a broader systemic inflammatory response. Unfortunately, this can lead to adverse events in various organ systems including the central nervous system (CNS).

Today, several immunoassay platforms are used for cytokine profiling, each differing in detection signal and advantages for different testing scales and hypotheses. The most common platforms are:

  • Meso Scale Discovery® (MSD): MSD assays use electrochemiluminescent labels and enable ultra-sensitive detection
  •  Olink® PEA Technology: this technology combines an antibody-based immunoassay with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to provide high-throughput multi-plex analysis
  • Ella™: a next-generation, automated benchtop ELISA multiplexing system that delivers high-speed precision with minimal user input

So, what insights can these assays give to developers, exactly?

When deployed in early clinical phases, cytokine profiling assays can provide crucial insight into the temporal dynamics of immune cell activation and adverse effects, such as cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS). Combined with other assays (such as cell enumeration, cell phenotyping, and VCN determination), cytokine profiling can also support decision making on optimal dosing levels, reducing the reliance on the maximum tolerable dose.

The future of cytokine profiling: emerging roles and applications

As cell therapies diversify in complexity, target, and agent, the roles and applications of cytokine profiling in cell therapy testing are set to change in several ways.

Assessing novel secondary mechanisms

For every element added to a cell construct, monitoring of a new biomarker or signature is needed to show that the addition has the intended effect in the body. Cytokine profiling is likely to help here, potentially playing a key role in evaluating the secondary mechanisms of next-generation construct designs such as CAR T cell armoring.

Understanding the impact of patient immune status

Another emerging application of cytokine profiling is understanding baseline cytokine signatures that correlate with clinically relevant parameters. With these signatures, researchers can better understand how a patient’s immune status influences the quality and action of cell therapy. Naturally, such knowledge could have far-reaching impacts. For example, insight into how patient health affects therapy efficacy will be paramount for more confidently evaluating therapies approved as earlier-line treatments — treatments that operate in the context of a less depleted immune system.

Staying abreast of trends in cell therapy clinical testing

Keen to find out more about the current and anticipated future applications of cytokine profiling and other key testing areas? Our experts discuss all this and more in our Cell Therapy Trends Report.

Download the report for free today.

Alternatively, contact our team to speak to an expert about your cell therapy needs.

About the author: 

author photo

Nick Dupuis is a Senior Director of Scientific Business Development at CellCarta and has a background in in proteomics and biophysical measurement. He has held various roles in industry including as a scientist in LDT/IVD product and applications development, and business development for emerging analytical platforms. At CellCarta he leads commercialization initiatives touching on multiomic applications for biomarkers in cell therapy and pathways to support companion diagnostic development.

Why HLA typing assays matter when developing cell therapies

July 23, 2024

Nathalie Bernard (PhD)

HLA Typing

As cell therapies grow in number, diversity, and complexity, clinical testing programs are seeking new ways to comprehensively characterize candidates while accelerating development — no easy task.

Advances in clinical testing are especially evident in several key areas across the cell therapy space, as detailed in our Cell Therapy Trends Report. At a glance, these areas comprise B-cell aplasia, cytokine profiling, cell enumeration and vector copy number determination, single-cell analytics, and — the focus of this post — human leucocyte antigen (HLA) typing.

All are hugely valuable areas of clinical testing. Together, they paint a fuller picture of cell therapy action and efficacy, helping new, diversified therapies advance within this ever-changing landscape.

What is HLA typing, and why is it important?

Our HLA genes code for cell surface proteins that identify which cells belong in the body and which do not, helping identify and raise the alarm towards a foreign cell or invading pathogen. For organ, blood, tissue or stem cell transplantation, it is crucial that both donor and recipient possess closely matching HLA markers to reduce the chances of a transplant being rejected or triggering an immune response. Donor-recipient compatibility is ascertained via HLA typing assays.

However, HLA typing assays have evolved and widened in scope since they were first developed and validated for this purpose. Newer techniques offer a finer degree of detail thanks to next-generation sequencing (NGS). Unlike other sequencing methods, NGS can more readily define whether HLAs originate from the same or opposite chromosome (cis or trans, respectively), leading to more accurate typing with less ambiguity.

Such in-depth HLA profiling stands to advance the clinical assessment of cancer-targeting cell therapies based on T-cell receptors (TCRs). It can reveal more about how the immune system interacts with cancer cells, enabling the development of new and more tailored immunotherapies to treat various cancers more effectively.

HLA profiling also holds promise in the assessment of patients in clinical trials. Trial participants can be stratified by HLA profile to ensure that an engineered TCR is the right fit for a given HLA-peptide complex, in turn making it more likely that a therapy will achieve its desired effect and progress smoothly to approval.

How clinical testing is changing — and what this means for HLA typing assays

Cell therapies are becoming more diverse, complex, and numerous. We are seeing new biomarkers, mechanisms, agents, constructs, and targets in emerging therapies, all of which require an expansion in testing strategies for comprehensive yet rapid characterization.

In this ever-changing landscape, HLA typing assays must be adapted if they are to effectively support clinical testing and trials, and become relevant for broader therapy evaluation. Assays must become more efficient and adaptable, and innovation must keep pace with the shifting regulatory environment.

Overall, HLA typing assays will need to be:

  • Modular, with generally validated, off-the-shelf HLA typing assays being explored to streamline testing both before and during clinical trials
  • Complementary, with technologies such as immunohistochemistry and flow cytometry expanding the relevance of HLA profiling to other therapeutic scenarios

In the future, we anticipate that novel therapies will emerge faster than they can be evaluated by existing clinical testing programs. To address this, therapy developers are considering how to leverage both new and existing approaches to HLA profiling to achieve optimal results efficiently.

Download CellCarta’s full Cell Therapy Trends Report to dig deeper into what the changing cell therapy landscape means for HLA typing and other areas of clinical testing, or contact our team to speak to an expert about your cell therapy clinical testing needs.

About the author: 

author photo

Nathalie Bernard (PhD) is the scientific business director for the Genomic Services unit within CellCarta. Her background is in molecular biology, and she has many years of experience in PCR and sequencing, technologies used to discover or identify DNA and RNA biomarkers of clinical utility. At CellCarta, Nathalie is using her expertise to guide our customers in finding the best solution to their genomic questions.

Why HLA typing assays matter when developing cell therapies

July 23, 2024

Nathalie Bernard (PhD)

HLA Typing

As cell therapies grow in number, diversity, and complexity, clinical testing programs are seeking new ways to comprehensively characterize candidates while accelerating development — no easy task.

Advances in clinical testing are especially evident in several key areas across the cell therapy space, as detailed in our Cell Therapy Trends Report. At a glance, these areas comprise B-cell aplasia, cytokine profiling, cell enumeration and vector copy number determination, single-cell analytics, and — the focus of this post — human leucocyte antigen (HLA) typing.

All are hugely valuable areas of clinical testing. Together, they paint a fuller picture of cell therapy action and efficacy, helping new, diversified therapies advance within this ever-changing landscape.

What is HLA typing, and why is it important?

Our HLA genes code for cell surface proteins that identify which cells belong in the body and which do not, helping identify and raise the alarm towards a foreign cell or invading pathogen. For organ, blood, tissue or stem cell transplantation, it is crucial that both donor and recipient possess closely matching HLA markers to reduce the chances of a transplant being rejected or triggering an immune response. Donor-recipient compatibility is ascertained via HLA typing assays.

However, HLA typing assays have evolved and widened in scope since they were first developed and validated for this purpose. Newer techniques offer a finer degree of detail thanks to next-generation sequencing (NGS). Unlike other sequencing methods, NGS can more readily define whether HLAs originate from the same or opposite chromosome (cis or trans, respectively), leading to more accurate typing with less ambiguity.

Such in-depth HLA profiling stands to advance the clinical assessment of cancer-targeting cell therapies based on T-cell receptors (TCRs). It can reveal more about how the immune system interacts with cancer cells, enabling the development of new and more tailored immunotherapies to treat various cancers more effectively.

HLA profiling also holds promise in the assessment of patients in clinical trials. Trial participants can be stratified by HLA profile to ensure that an engineered TCR is the right fit for a given HLA-peptide complex, in turn making it more likely that a therapy will achieve its desired effect and progress smoothly to approval.

How clinical testing is changing — and what this means for HLA typing assays

Cell therapies are becoming more diverse, complex, and numerous. We are seeing new biomarkers, mechanisms, agents, constructs, and targets in emerging therapies, all of which require an expansion in testing strategies for comprehensive yet rapid characterization.

In this ever-changing landscape, HLA typing assays must be adapted if they are to effectively support clinical testing and trials, and become relevant for broader therapy evaluation. Assays must become more efficient and adaptable, and innovation must keep pace with the shifting regulatory environment.

Overall, HLA typing assays will need to be:

  • Modular, with generally validated, off-the-shelf HLA typing assays being explored to streamline testing both before and during clinical trials
  • Complementary, with technologies such as immunohistochemistry and flow cytometry expanding the relevance of HLA profiling to other therapeutic scenarios

In the future, we anticipate that novel therapies will emerge faster than they can be evaluated by existing clinical testing programs. To address this, therapy developers are considering how to leverage both new and existing approaches to HLA profiling to achieve optimal results efficiently.

Download CellCarta’s full Cell Therapy Trends Report to dig deeper into what the changing cell therapy landscape means for HLA typing and other areas of clinical testing, or contact our team to speak to an expert about your cell therapy clinical testing needs.

About the author: 

author photo

Nathalie Bernard (PhD) is the scientific business director for the Genomic Services unit within CellCarta. Her background is in molecular biology, and she has many years of experience in PCR and sequencing, technologies used to discover or identify DNA and RNA biomarkers of clinical utility. At CellCarta, Nathalie is using her expertise to guide our customers in finding the best solution to their genomic questions.

Optimizing Cell Therapy with Advanced VCN and Cell Counting

July 16, 2024

Laïla-Aïcha Hanafi, PhD

Optimizing Cell Therapy Clinical Testing

Cell therapy targets, constructs, and agents are expanding and diversifying — fast. Clinical testing must now comprehensively characterize an ever-broader number and array of therapies, while continuing to prioritize urgency and efficiency in their development and approval.

We delve into how clinical testing is evolving to meet demand in this rapidly changing landscape in our Cell Therapy Trends Report, and examine a few key areas where cell therapy testing programs are changing. One of these is cell enumeration and vector copy number (VCN) determination, which provide insights on how a given therapeutic construct is behaving in the body.

Below, we explore how techniques for cell enumeration and VCN determination are being adapted to assess greater numbers of increasingly complex and diversified therapy candidates, and discuss what the future holds for this key area of clinical testing.

Understanding cell enumeration and VCN in clinical testing

Cell enumeration and VCN determination methods assess cell number (via flow cytometric detection of surface proteins) and the number of constructs transduced into a cell (via PCR-based quantification of DNA), respectively. Together, the two measure cell therapy expansion and determine the abundance and persistence of therapeutic cells — crucial to ascertain how various cell types are responding to a therapy.

As cell therapies and sample types diversify, clinical testing for cell enumeration and VCN determination must assess a broader array of targets, requiring more specialized means of analysis. However, developers must also keep speed in mind, and balance specialization with efficiency to ensure that therapies are evaluated in a timely way.

So, what does the future hold for this realm of clinical testing?

Complementary methods

Cell enumeration and VCN determination techniques take complementary measurements from different angles, using different methods and analytes to evaluate cell therapies.

By utilizing both approaches in early-phase trials, cell therapy developers can gain high confidence in how they are interpreting their data, thereby producing a more reliable and robust picture of therapy expansion, and also lending confidence to each individual assay.

Alignment can also streamline testing. Cell enumeration via flow cytometry, despite providing additional phenotyping information on expanded cells, can be difficult to scale up, and so is often limited in later-stage use due to the challenges of collecting and transporting samples off-site. But, if aligned with cell enumeration in early-phase testing, VCN can act as a proxy measure of cell number during later-stage testing, simplifying logistics.

Increasing customization

As more diverse cell therapies reach clinical stages, cell enumeration and VCN determination methods need increasing customization — to track proprietary constructs as patients become more likely to receive multiple therapies, for instance. Additionally, new therapeutic cells such as CAR-macrophages may require novel antigen targets to be monitored in various tissues other than circulating blood, requiring new protocols for collection and analysis.

Enhancing modularity

Although customized assays are valuable, they are time- and resource-consuming to develop and validate. Modularization can minimize the timeline impact of assay customization. Testing programs for cell enumeration and VCN determination can be made quicker and easier to deploy by identifying generic analytes; and by utilizing modular data analytics to streamline readouts, and accelerate data processing.

Cell enumeration and VCN in the ever-changing cell therapy landscape

With the accelerating pace and increasing diversity of cell therapy development, clinical testing must become more responsive and adaptive, leveraging different approaches to deliver readouts that provide meaningful insights into cell therapy action and host response.

We dig deeper into emerging testing approaches for cell enumeration and VCN determination, and explore the future of cell therapy clinical testing more generally, in our Cell Therapy Trends Report. Download the report now, or contact our team to speak to an expert about your cell therapy needs.

About the author:

author photo

Laïla-Aïcha Hanafi is the Director of Scientific Laboratory Operations in flow cytometry at CellCarta. She supplemented her PhD in immuno-oncology with post-doctoral studies in translational biomarkers for cell therapies at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. Laïla has combined scientific knowledge and operational efficiency to address biomarker needs in clinical trial and prioritizing high quality data to move therapies to the next stage of clinical deployment.

Optimizing Cell Therapy with Advanced VCN and Cell Counting

July 16, 2024

Laïla-Aïcha Hanafi, PhD

Optimizing Cell Therapy Clinical Testing

Cell therapy targets, constructs, and agents are expanding and diversifying — fast. Clinical testing must now comprehensively characterize an ever-broader number and array of therapies, while continuing to prioritize urgency and efficiency in their development and approval.

We delve into how clinical testing is evolving to meet demand in this rapidly changing landscape in our Cell Therapy Trends Report, and examine a few key areas where cell therapy testing programs are changing. One of these is cell enumeration and vector copy number (VCN) determination, which provide insights on how a given therapeutic construct is behaving in the body.

Below, we explore how techniques for cell enumeration and VCN determination are being adapted to assess greater numbers of increasingly complex and diversified therapy candidates, and discuss what the future holds for this key area of clinical testing.

Understanding cell enumeration and VCN in clinical testing

Cell enumeration and VCN determination methods assess cell number (via flow cytometric detection of surface proteins) and the number of constructs transduced into a cell (via PCR-based quantification of DNA), respectively. Together, the two measure cell therapy expansion and determine the abundance and persistence of therapeutic cells — crucial to ascertain how various cell types are responding to a therapy.

As cell therapies and sample types diversify, clinical testing for cell enumeration and VCN determination must assess a broader array of targets, requiring more specialized means of analysis. However, developers must also keep speed in mind, and balance specialization with efficiency to ensure that therapies are evaluated in a timely way.

So, what does the future hold for this realm of clinical testing?

Complementary methods

Cell enumeration and VCN determination techniques take complementary measurements from different angles, using different methods and analytes to evaluate cell therapies.

By utilizing both approaches in early-phase trials, cell therapy developers can gain high confidence in how they are interpreting their data, thereby producing a more reliable and robust picture of therapy expansion, and also lending confidence to each individual assay.

Alignment can also streamline testing. Cell enumeration via flow cytometry, despite providing additional phenotyping information on expanded cells, can be difficult to scale up, and so is often limited in later-stage use due to the challenges of collecting and transporting samples off-site. But, if aligned with cell enumeration in early-phase testing, VCN can act as a proxy measure of cell number during later-stage testing, simplifying logistics.

Increasing customization

As more diverse cell therapies reach clinical stages, cell enumeration and VCN determination methods need increasing customization — to track proprietary constructs as patients become more likely to receive multiple therapies, for instance. Additionally, new therapeutic cells such as CAR-macrophages may require novel antigen targets to be monitored in various tissues other than circulating blood, requiring new protocols for collection and analysis.

Enhancing modularity

Although customized assays are valuable, they are time- and resource-consuming to develop and validate. Modularization can minimize the timeline impact of assay customization. Testing programs for cell enumeration and VCN determination can be made quicker and easier to deploy by identifying generic analytes; and by utilizing modular data analytics to streamline readouts, and accelerate data processing.

Cell enumeration and VCN in the ever-changing cell therapy landscape

With the accelerating pace and increasing diversity of cell therapy development, clinical testing must become more responsive and adaptive, leveraging different approaches to deliver readouts that provide meaningful insights into cell therapy action and host response.

We dig deeper into emerging testing approaches for cell enumeration and VCN determination, and explore the future of cell therapy clinical testing more generally, in our Cell Therapy Trends Report. Download the report now, or contact our team to speak to an expert about your cell therapy needs.

About the author:

author photo

Laïla-Aïcha Hanafi is the Director of Scientific Laboratory Operations in flow cytometry at CellCarta. She supplemented her PhD in immuno-oncology with post-doctoral studies in translational biomarkers for cell therapies at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. Laïla has combined scientific knowledge and operational efficiency to address biomarker needs in clinical trial and prioritizing high quality data to move therapies to the next stage of clinical deployment.

Cell Therapy Trends Report | Insights from CellCarta

Cell therapy clinical testing: trends in an ever-changing landscape

As cell therapies become increasingly diverse and pressure mounts to accelerate approvals, clinical testing programs face new and complex challenges.

But how are clinical testing programs adapting? And what could the future hold?

In our new report, five cell therapy experts describe how clinical testing programs are accommodating diverse therapeutic approaches, as well as anticipated changes in key testing areas, including:

The cell therapy landscape is evolving fast. Discover what that means for clinical testing programs in this trends report from industry experts.

Download the resource

Cell Therapy Clinical Testing Trend Report - cover

As a global CRO, we prioritize your study goals and clinical trial needs above all else. We aim to provide you with easy, accessible, and comprehensive technologies spanning a multitude of therapeutic areas.

Discover our range of services in immunology, proteomics, genomics, as well as related ML/AI and sample logistics services.

Cell Therapy Trends Report | Insights from CellCarta

Cell therapy clinical testing: trends in an ever-changing landscape

As cell therapies become increasingly diverse and pressure mounts to accelerate approvals, clinical testing programs face new and complex challenges.

But how are clinical testing programs adapting? And what could the future hold?

In our new report, five cell therapy experts describe how clinical testing programs are accommodating diverse therapeutic approaches, as well as anticipated changes in key testing areas, including:

The cell therapy landscape is evolving fast. Discover what that means for clinical testing programs in this trends report from industry experts.

Download the resource

Cell Therapy Clinical Testing Trend Report - cover

As a global CRO, we prioritize your study goals and clinical trial needs above all else. We aim to provide you with easy, accessible, and comprehensive technologies spanning a multitude of therapeutic areas.

Discover our range of services in immunology, proteomics, genomics, as well as related ML/AI and sample logistics services.

Let's Talk: A Conversation with CAR T-cell Therapy Pioneer Dr. Carl June

February 22, 2024

Immunotherapies such as CAR T-cell therapy hold a lot of promise in treating illnesses like cancer. However, key challenges remain in their development, in particular the need to address adverse events and patient resistance.

In this webcast, Dr. Carl June, a pioneer in the field of CAR T-cell therapy, joins Christopher Ung, our Chief Scientific Business Officer, for an in-depth conversation on developing immuno and CAR T-cell therapies.

Key topics discussed in this cell therapy focused webcast: 

  • Academic and Industry Partnership in CAR-T Development 
  • CAR-T Development in US and China 
  • Biomarkers from vein to vein: Mechanism, Selection, and Resistance 
  • Facing the Challenges: Adverse Events and Patient Resistance 
  • New Frontiers: Solid Tumors, Evolutionary and Revolutionary CAR models 
author photo

Dr. Carl June

Dr. June is a member of CellCarta’s Scientific Advisory Board and the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 2011, his research team published a paper on the first CAR-T therapy treating leukemia patients with their own genetically modified T-cells.

author photo

Mr. Christopher Ung

Mr. Ung is CellCarta’s Chief Scientific Business Officer and has served in the companion diagnostics field since its inception. He is one of the original pioneers of the personalized medicine field.

Mr. Ung currently leads the development and execution of CellCarta’s strategic and business initiatives, leveraging the company’s solid tumour and anatomic pathology services.

Let's Talk: A Conversation with CAR T-cell Therapy Pioneer Dr. Carl June

February 22, 2024

Immunotherapies such as CAR T-cell therapy hold a lot of promise in treating illnesses like cancer. However, key challenges remain in their development, in particular the need to address adverse events and patient resistance.

In this webcast, Dr. Carl June, a pioneer in the field of CAR T-cell therapy, joins Christopher Ung, our Chief Scientific Business Officer, for an in-depth conversation on developing immuno and CAR T-cell therapies.

Key topics discussed in this cell therapy focused webcast: 

  • Academic and Industry Partnership in CAR-T Development 
  • CAR-T Development in US and China 
  • Biomarkers from vein to vein: Mechanism, Selection, and Resistance 
  • Facing the Challenges: Adverse Events and Patient Resistance 
  • New Frontiers: Solid Tumors, Evolutionary and Revolutionary CAR models 
author photo

Dr. Carl June

Dr. June is a member of CellCarta’s Scientific Advisory Board and the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 2011, his research team published a paper on the first CAR-T therapy treating leukemia patients with their own genetically modified T-cells.

author photo

Mr. Christopher Ung

Mr. Ung is CellCarta’s Chief Scientific Business Officer and has served in the companion diagnostics field since its inception. He is one of the original pioneers of the personalized medicine field.

Mr. Ung currently leads the development and execution of CellCarta’s strategic and business initiatives, leveraging the company’s solid tumour and anatomic pathology services.