SCI Scientist Develops an Enhanced Receptor to Treat Various Cancers

SCI scientist, Bruce Walcheck, PhD, has teamed up with Jianming Wu, DVM, PhD to create an enhanced receptor that advances the field of immunotherapy to treat cancer in humans and they hope to use it eventually to treat cancer in dogs too.     

Fate Therapeutics, a California-based biotechnology company, has licensed this new receptor that used Natural Killer cells that were derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and grown in a lab. The therapy can be delivered to patients by injections, and is currently in a human clinical trial run by Jeffrey Miller, MD, professor in the U’s Medical School, which is still enrolling participants.  “This is the first-ever engineered iPSC-derived cell therapy cleared for clinical investigation worldwide,” according to Walcheck.  Learn more.