Promising new treatments for cancer use cells (from the patient or from a healthy donor) that have been educated in the laboratory to target and kill the cancer cells. Sometimes that education also involves modifying the genes in the cells to change the way they behave. In order to protect the safety of the patient, the FDA has developed strict regulations on how these “complex biological therapies” are prepared and administered. For many investigators, meeting these regulations, and the associated high costs, are a major barrier to getting a new treatment into the clinic. The Center for Cell & Gene Therapy at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston is highly experienced in preparing cells fo...

Read More

Promising new treatments for cancer use cells (from the patient or from a healthy donor) that have been educated in the laboratory to target and kill the cancer cells. Sometimes that education also involves modifying the genes in the cells to change the way they behave. In order to protect the safety of the patient, the FDA has developed strict regulations on how these “complex biological therapies” are prepared and administered. For many investigators, meeting these regulations, and the associated high costs, are a major barrier to getting a new treatment into the clinic. The Center for Cell & Gene Therapy at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston is highly experienced in preparing cells for cancer treatment using a specialized manufacturing facility. In this proposal we ask for support to extend and enhance our current facilities and technology so that we are able to offer the skill and expertise of the staff, and state of the art resources they use, to other Texas cancer researchers who lack the infrastructure to manufacture cells for new therapies. This new Texas Access to Cancer Cell Therapies (TACCT) will remove a major roadblock to clinical studies and accelerate the development and evaluation of new cancer therapies in Texas, providing Texas researchers with a resource unavailable to investigators elsewhere.

Read Less