Regulatory T Cell Therapy for Immune-Related Diseases

HKU
Overview

The invention is about a high-efficient and low-cost system to prepare a specific type of human T cells (human alloantigen-specific CD8hi Tregs) at a large scale and the novel therapy against immune disorder diseases such as transplantation-related diseases, autoimmune diseases, and allergy without supressing general immunity.

  • Regulatory T Cell Therapy for Immune-Related Diseases 0
  • Regulatory T Cell Therapy for Immune-Related Diseases 1
Commercialisation opportunities
Licensing, collaboration and investment
Problem addressed

Current strategy to treat transplantation-related diseases, autoimmune diseases, and allergy relied on the general suppression of immune system led to severe side effects such as opportunistic infections and tumor relapse. For transplantation, less than 5% of patients can undergo transplantation due to the failure of human leukocyte antigens (HLA)-match for bone marrow and transplantation. Treg-based therapy might address the problem.

Innovation
  • A simple and cost-effective and novel method for generating a large-scale human allogeneic-specific CD4+ and CD8+ Regulatory T cells ex vivo.
Key impact
  • No need for donor-recipient matching for transplanation once adopting this regulatory T cell therapy
  • Alloantigen-specific suppression:
    - induce a long-term tolerance;
    - preserve general immunity and graft-versus-tumor (GVT) activity.
  • The T cell production methond simple and low-cost
Application
  • Novel therapeutic for the treatment of transplant allograft rejection (TAR) and graft-versus-host disease (GVHD)
  • Novel therapeutic for the treatment of autoimmune diseases and allergy

Patent

  • US patent grant No 10,092,597
  • US patent grant No 8,658,159
  • Chinese patent No ZL200980125228.0
  • EP patent No 2300602
  • German patent No 602009041566.2
The University of Hong Kong (HKU)

Founded in 1911, The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is the first and oldest institution of higher education in Hong Kong. For over a century, the University has dedicated itself to creating knowledge, providing education, and serving society. Today, HKU has an established worldwide reputation for being a research-led comprehensive University with ten Faculties and a strong commitment to intellectual freedom, liberty and diversity. HKU has a proud record of academic recognition in researches through honours and awards received from both local and international bodies.

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