Natural Killer cells—the body’s own cancer-killing immune cells—are being turned into a scalable therapy for ovarian cancer. The company behind this project has developed proprietary techniques to produce human NK cells that are more toxic to cancer cells and safer than existing T-cell therapies, which can trigger dangerous immune reactions. The problem is that current NK-cell manufacturing is inefficient, yielding exhausted cells with low killing power. This project will develop automated production processes to make these “weaponised” NK cells at scale, initially targeting ovarian cancer, where NK-cell presence in tumours is linked to better survival. If successful, the work could transform a promising but poorly manufactured therapy into a widely available treatment—not just for ovarian cancer, but potentially for a range of solid tumours that current immunotherapies struggle to reach. The impact would be felt in oncology wards and manufacturing facilities alike: a reliable supply of potent, safer cell therapies for patients who currently have few options.
View original technical description
The use of cancer immunotherapy has now entered mainstream oncology as a consequence of two main innovations: checkpoint inhibitor therapy and the engineering of T-cells to target tumour cells (CAR-T cells). Both have shown some success but only a minority of patients respond. They have limited impact on solid tumours and can cause fatal or highly damaging immune reactions such as cytokine storms and Graft vs Host Disease (GvHD). Our company has developed a technology to produce human Natural Killer (NK) cells that are very toxic towards cancer cells and can be transferred into patients to treat cancer. We have developed novel and proprietary techniques that allow us to make human NK-cells that exploit NK-cell biology to clear cancer cells. NK-cells have an established role in our bodies, recognising cancer cells and destroying them before they become dangerous. In fact, NK-cells are more toxic towards cancer cells and are safer than other existing cell therapies. NK-cell therapy is being tested in multiple clinical trials, however current production methods are highly inefficient and result in transfusion of "exhausted" cells that have low cytotoxicity. New manufacturing and scale up processes are urgently needed if these treatments are to be made more widely available to patients. This project will develop new automated production and scale up processes for our proprietary NK-cell therapies, which have potential across a wide range of cancers. This project will be undertaken in the context of our candidate therapy for ovarian cancer, which currently has a poor prognosis for 10-year survival. The presence of NK-cells within an ovarian cancer is usually associated with a good prognosis for the patient and the biology of ovarian cancer suggests that it can be highly susceptible to "weaponised" NK cells. If successful, this project will enable a highly innovative therapy to be produced at scale and made widely available to the patients who need it.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know