Co-leader of Case CCC's Immune Oncology Program, David Wald, MD, PhD, has already improved the landscape of CAR T immunotherapy by developing an ultra-fast procedure that cuts CAR T cell manufacturing from two weeks to less than 24 hours.
However, harvesting T cells to make CAR T therapy possible is not only challenging but expensive.
That's why Wald, Susann Brady-Kalnay, PhD, a cell biologist in CWRU's School of Medicine and member of Case CCC's Cancer Imaging Program, and Robert Brown, PhD, a physicist in CWRU's College of Arts and Sciences, have come together to create a new T cell harvesting device: CAPGLO. The device “captures” T cells with a magnetic field and makes them "glow" with fluorescent tags, allowing the T cells to be easily collected for chimeric transduction.
CAPGLO will make CAR T immunotherapy less expensive and thus more widely available and accessible for patients who need it the most.