Agilent - Breakthroughs in Immunotherapy- 2019 - 8

Breakthroughs in Immunotherapy * Interview with Dr. Carl June

cells as a therapeutic modality. Is there a
role for cell-based assays of the kind that
we're talking about, the 'newer type' that are
being developed?
Carl June: Very much so. With autologous
cell therapies, at least one issue has been
that it's always going to be more expensive than having third-party cells that
can be made in large batches. If you're
going to make something expensive, you
want to make sure it works. So, any [cellbased] assay that improves the probability
that you're going to have an effective cell
product will be something that everyone
wants- patients, physicians, and thirdparty payors, etc.
Understanding the basis by which cells
from candidates can manufacture an
effective cell product is an important first

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step. To find these answers flow cytometry
approaches, kinetic measures of live-cell
metabolism, and quantifying the ability of T
cells to kill targets over time are all aspects
that can be investigated now with tools
that Agilent provides.
David Ferrick: To wrap up, what would you
tell Agilent and others, who are working on
building tools and trying to enable people in
this field, about how they can contribute?
Carl June: Functional assays. For a
long while, we only had flow cytometry.
I believe that we can learn a lot from a
weakness in the pharmaceutical industry,
where many trials were done without
much emphasis on studying the reason
why some trials failed.
But when using engineered cells, you

can retrieve them back from the patient
and study them and investigate more
thoroughly the immunophenotyping and
metabolic health of the cells and find out
was this T cell exhaustion, had the cells
senesced, or perhaps it never engrafted?
I'm optimistic that we may find solutions
through analysis of where it has failed.
With that knowledge, I believe we're going
to be able to make better "next generation" T cells that will overcome those
vulnerabilities.
David Ferrick: Carl, it's a great note to end
on. Thank you so much for helping us with
this, it's been great.
Carl June: Well thanks David, it's been
great to work with Agilent as well. n
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Agilent - Breakthroughs in Immunotherapy- 2019

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