Synergy with Cell and Gene Therapy

What is cell and gene therapy, and how does immune engineering make a positive impact?

Cell therapy is the administration of whole live cells, with or without a biomaterial carrier, to a patient, and gene therapy is modification of a patient’s genes using molecular biology tools, including synthetic DNA or mRNA-loaded carriers and gene editing tools like CRISPR/Cas9.

These two strategies can also be combined to genetically engineer live cell therapies, such as CAR T cells. Immune Engineering tools are being used to enhance these strategies by mitigating adverse immune responses and enhancing effectiveness of immune cell therapies.

Cell and Gene Therapy		Immune Engineering
Cell Therapy: administration of live donor cells to a patient	+	Prevents rejection of donor cells
Gene Therapy: modification of a patient’s genes using molecular biology tools	+	Minimizes adverse immune system response
Cell and Gene Therapy: administration of genetically modified cells to a patient. Includes “engineered immune cells”	+	Fine-tunes minimizing side effects, reduce variability, and increase potency for hard-to-treat conditions