The client in this case study is a Senior Scientist supporting CAR-T cell discovery efforts for a global pharmaceutical company. Discovery Life Sciences has been a human biologics partner to this client and company for over 8 years providing many different biospecimens and services.

During a discussion on a related project, the client asked if we could collect and isolate T cells from healthy donors and expand them via cell culture. Their goal was to create a sample pool of patient-matched primary and expanded T cells to be used in multiple CAR-T cell research and development projects across 3 research groups within the company.

Discovery’s Global Tissue Biomarker Services have supported assay development, validation and global clinical trial testing by providing expeditious and high-quality results, which are crucial to the success of drug and companion diagnostic development programs and are fit for any stage of research and development.

The name of the client and their company could not be disclosed for this case study due to the sensitive nature of their research.

Study Parameters: 

  • 4 recallable healthy apheresis donors
  • 100-200 frozen vials of primary T cells per patient, 20mm
  • 100-200 frozen vials of expanded T cells per patient, 50mm
  • Inclusion criteria: No steroids or ibuprofen at the time of draw and no vaccines within the last 6 weeks
  • NGS characterization for patient HLA typing
  • Flow characterization across multiple timepoints (including timepoint 0) for T cell activation markers including: cell count, cell size, CD3, CD4, CD8, CD45RO, CD25, CD27, CD69, HLA-DR, PD1, and 2 proprietary antibodies.