EBMT 2017 | Highlights from the EBMT 2017 cell therapy day

Christian Chabannon, MD, PhD, from Institut Paoli Calmettes, Marseille, France, discusses highlights of cellular therapy presented at the 2017 annual meeting of the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) in Marseille, France. Four sessions were dedicated to processing and manufacturing of cellular therapy, including regular transplants and innovative cellular therapies. He explains that most of the therapies are manufactured with the goal to improve immune reconstitution following transplant, or to empower cells and the recipient with improved capability to fight infectious diseases or the underlying tumor.
Prof. Chabannon explains that one of the sessions during this cell therapy day showed the development of innovative therapies. He highlights a talk by Catherine Bollard explaining how T-cells can be engineered with activity against several tumor antigens, and a session by Ulrike Köhl, who works on genetically modifying natural killer (NK) cells, which may display anti-tumor activity. Prof. Chabannon also discusses a presentation by John Barrett, who recapitulated some of the immune mechanisms underlying graft versus host disease (GvHD) and graft versus leukemia (GVL), as well as the success or failure of controlling the tumor disease for patients receiving transplants.