The Complex Pharmacology of T-Cell CARs

Hear from Dr. Charles Prussak, PharmD, PhD., Director of the Cell Therapy Translational Laboratory (CTTL), University of California, San Diego (UCSD)

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Who Should Attend: 1. Cancer immunologists 2. Researchers performing immuno-oncology research by flow cytometry 3. Bench scientists and clinicians who have an interest in building their knowledge base around designing experiments or studies that leverage specific analytical advantages of flow cytometry

Recent research advances in the clinical development of immune modulating agents targeting PD-1, PDL-1 and CTLA-4 have renewed interest in the potential of cell based therapeutics including those that employ B-, T- and NK-lymphocytes and neutrophils. UCSD and its associated Moores Cancer Center have been at the forefront in the creation and development of these new therapeutic modalities, which are now being advanced into human clinical studies. The Cell Therapy Translational Laboratory (CTTL) under the direction of Dr. Charles Prussak, has been created by the UCSD School of Medicine to serve as the engine to generate translational cell based clinical studies that take advantage of breakthroughs discovered in UCSD research laboratories.

In his presentation, Dr. Prussak will discuss the renewed interest in cell based immunotherapies and the advances his lab is making in creating these next generation therapies. Dr. Prussak is currently developing a chimeric antigen receptor modified T-cells (CARs) that target the fetal antigen ROR1. This ROR1 targeting T-cell CAR is currently in late stage pre-clinical development and phase I clinical studies are expected to be initiated in early 2018.

Key Highlights:

  1. Strategies in cell based immunotherapies and CAR generation
  2. Advances in the development of tumor targeting cell therapies
  3. How flow cytometry enables expanded tumor and variable testing

Presenter(s)

Dr. Charles Prussak - PharmD, PhD., Director of the Cell Therapy Translational Laboratory (CTTL), University of California, San Diego (UCSD)

Dr. Charles Prussak

PharmD, PhD., Director of the Cell Therapy Translational Laboratory (CTTL), University of California, San Diego (UCSD)

Charles Prussak, Pharm D, PhD has over 25 years’ experience working in academia and the biotech industry developing cell-based therapeutics. Dr. Prussak is currently the Director of the Cell Therapy Translational Laboratory (CTTL), which has been created by the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) to serve as the engine to generate translational cell-based therapeutics that take advantage of breakthroughs discovered in UCSD research laboratories. His long history in developing cell-based therapies began at Viagene, Inc., where he was a founding scientist of a pioneering gene therapy company. As Director of Product Development, Dr. Prussak was responsible for the creation of the first ex vivo modified cell products and recombinant retroviruses entered into human clinical trials. After Chiron, Inc., acquired Viagene, Dr. Prussak was named Director of Gene Therapy at UCSD and was responsible for the creation and production of cell and gene therapy products for campus researchers. To expand the scope of this program, UCSD joined with the Boehringer Mannheim Corporation to form Molecular Medicine. As President & CEO of Molecular Medicine, Dr. Prussak directed the production of gene and cell therapies that were employed in over 20 phase I-III clinical trials conducted in the US and Europe. Following Molecular Medicine, Dr. Prussak co-founded Tragen Therapeutics, which developed gene therapies for the treatment of leukemias and solid tumor cancers. Tragen’s lead product employed gene-modified B cell leukemic cells to activate immune responses that sensitized the target cancer to standard chemotherapeutic agents. These ex vivo clinical studies were precursors to current targeted immunotherapies employing immune modulating agents.