Towards clinical translation
Having been awarded a 3-year Trish Translational Research Project Grant titled, “Advancing tolerogenic dendritic cell therapy for multiple sclerosis toward clinical translation” which commenced January 2023, Professor Trevor Kilpatrick and Dr Vivien Li are making significant progress. They are working on a new way to treat MS, based on using patients’ own blood immune cells. These immune cells are treated with anti-inflammatory signals in the laboratory and then re-administered to the patient where they selectively target and dampen down the disease-causing immune cells that promote inflammation and lead to nerve cell damage in MS. This approach has benefits over existing therapies as it targets key initiating events in MS and could treat all disease stages. The targeted cells can cross into the central nervous system to dampen down disease-causing immune cells that are otherwise hidden from current treatments.
The team has already developed techniques to grow these immune cells from patient blood samples and defined culture conditions that can modify their behaviour to assume protective/anti-inflammatory rather than disease-inducing/pro-inflammatory characteristics. They have identified a relevant peptide involved in MS which can enable selective targeting of the disease-causing immune cells rather than broadly suppressing the immune system. Using advanced immunological techniques, they have found that frequency of immune cells that react to the identified peptide is higher in patients with MS compared to healthy controls. Furthermore, there was a higher proportion of cells with disease-inducing/pro-inflammatory characteristics. These findings further support the relevance of this peptide.
Professor Kilpatrick’s and Dr Li’s project will advance their existing work towards clinical translation. They have established a partnership with Cell Therapies to facilitate development of tolerogenic dendritic cells towards clinical trial. After only the first year of their 3-year Trish Translational Research Project, they have published a manuscript in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences and have another manuscript under review for the Journal of Neuroimmunology. As well, an oral platform presentation has been selected for the ANZAN Annual Scientific Meeting 2024.