“Our goal is to give our patients early access to the most innovative cancer immunotherapies and if we can help other countries do the same, that’s even better,” said Dr. John Bell.CAR-T therapy is a groundbreaking cancer treatment that involves genetically engineering a patient’s own immune cells to attack their cancer. While this therapy is commercially available in many countries, cancer researchers are also developing their own versions as a way to bring more innovative therapies to patients locally.
The Canadian-Led Immunotherapies in Cancer (CLIC) program, established in 2016 by The Ottawa Hospital, BC Cancer and BioCanRx, is a pioneering and successful example. In addition to expanding across Canada, the CLIC team recently helped researchers in Denmark launch their first academic CAR-T therapy clinical trial.
The Ottawa Hospital’s Biotherapeutics Manufacturing Centre produced the highly purified virus used to engineer the Danish CAR-T cells, CLIC clinicians at The Ottawa Hospital (Dr. Natasha Kekre and Dr. Harold Atkins) helped with the clinical trial protocol and CLIC researchers in BC contributed additional technology and expertise.
“Our goal is to give our patients early access to the most innovative cancer immunotherapies and if we can help other countries do the same, that’s even better,” said Dr. John Bell, senior scientist at The Ottawa Hospital, CLIC team member, professor at uOttawa and Scientific Director of BioCanRx.
“A huge thanks to our Canadian collaborators and friends, Rob Holt, John Bell, Brad Nelson, Natasha Kekre and team for their generous help and advice,” said Dr. Özcan Met, associate professor and Head of Cell Therapy Unit at National Center for Cancer Immune Therapy (CCIT-DK), Herlev University Hospital in Denmark.
“This is one more example of how The Ottawa Hospital’s Biotherapeutics Manufacturing Centre is playing a key role in strengthening Canada’s biomanufacturing ecosystem and supporting made-in-Canada solutions to global health challenges,” said Dr. Duncan Stewart.“This is one more example of how The Ottawa Hospital’s Biotherapeutics Manufacturing Centre is playing a key role in strengthening Canada’s biomanufacturing ecosystem and supporting made-in-Canada solutions to global health challenges,” said Dr. Duncan Stewart, Executive Vice-President of Research at The Ottawa Hospital and professor at the University of Ottawa. “We look forward to continuing to contribute to this exciting and impactful area.”
About the Canadian-Led Immunotherapies in Cancer (CLIC) research program
The CLIC research program, established in 2016, brings researchers, clinicians and patients from across Canada together to build Canadian expertise and capacity for innovation in the promising field of cellular immunotherapy for cancer, including CAR-T therapy. The first CLIC clinical trial launched in 2019 at The Ottawa Hospital and at BC Cancer, with support from BioCanRx, BC Cancer, BC Cancer Foundation, The Ottawa Hospital Foundation, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada. Core facilities and resources supporting CLIC include The Ottawa Hospital’s Biotherapeutics Manufacturing Centre, BC Cancer’s Conconi Family Immunotherapy Lab, the Ottawa Methods Centre and the Blueprint Translational Research Group. CLIC team investigators include Drs. Natasha Kekre, Harold Atkins, John Bell, Kevin Hay, Rob Holt, Brad Nelson, John Webb, Julie Nielsen, Manoj Lalu, Kednapa Thavorn, Dean Fergusson, Justin Presseau and Jen Quizi.
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