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Session Details

Lonza: Two Distinct Activation Methods Yield Clinical-Scale Expansion of T Cells
Friday, May 31, 2024 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM  
Room 212-214
Corporate Session
Speaker
  • Chengkang Zhang, PhD, Associate Director R&D, Lonza Bioscience Solutions, United States
Gamma delta (γδ) T cells have inherent ability to infiltrate solid tumors and can directly recognize and kill transformed cells independently of HLA-antigen presentation. Moreover, γδ T cells do not cause graft-versus-host disease and provide a promising platform for the development of T cell therapies targeting solid tumors. However, due to the low prevalence of γδ T cells in peripheral blood, it remains a challenge to generate enough γδ T cells to produce a clinical dose.
 
In this presentation, we use two distinct methods to generate billions of γδ T cells from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). The first method uses zoledronic acid as the activating agent to induce the expansion of more than 1 x 109 Vδ2+ T cells within 14 days, starting from cryopreserved PBMCs. In the second approach, either αβ T cells are specifically depleted from PBMCs or γδ T cells are isolated via negative selection prior to anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 co-stimulation, and billions of γδ T cells are generated – including both Vδ1+ and Vδ2+ T cell subsets. Interestingly, the anti-CD3/anti-CD28 activation method supports high lentivirus transduction of the γδ T cells. The expanded γδ T cells exhibit innate cytotoxicity towards the K562 cell line and produce cytokines including IFN-γ and TNF-α. Collectively, these data indicate that both methods may be utilized to generate enough γδ T cells to support clinical applications.

SPONSORED BY:
Chengkang Zhang
Associate Director
Lonza
Speaker