Products
Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation
Hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation is performed to restore hematopoiesis in patients that have been treated with high dose chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy. The stem cells can be derived from bone marrow, peripheral blood or umbilical cord blood. Within the Laboratory for Cell Therapy, blood and bone marrow is processed for patients who are in need of an autologous or allogeneic stem cell transplantation. The laboratory has ample experience with the processing, cryopreservation, storage and bed-side thawing of HSC transplants. Yearly the LCT processes approximately 150 transplants for the (academic) hospitals in the Amsterdam area.
In the past years many novel cellular products for individual therapy have been developed which are now translated into the clinic. These new cellular therapies can be subdivided into regenerative therapy or immunotherapy. Here we describe which cell types can be used and how we apply them for therapy.
Immunotherapy
Mesenchymal stromal cells
Bone-marrow derived mesenchymal stromal cells (BM-MSC) are multi-potent cells which provide support for haematopoietic progenitor cells. They have the ability to migrate to sites of inflammation and injury and have immunomodulatory properties. Clinical applications of MSC include treatment of therapy-resistant acute graft versus host disease (GvHD) and treatment of rejection after haematopoietic stem cell or solid organ transplantation. We are now generating a clinical grade MSC product. These MSCs will be used to treat patients with therapy-resistant GvHD in a phase III trial.
T-cells
Recently two clinical trial have started to treat melanoma patients with adoptive therapy using tumour specific T-cells or cytotoxic T-cells that are redirected by T-cell receptor gene transfer.
TIL
In collaboration with the Department of Immunology of NKI/AvL we are currently generating TIL for the treatment of melanoma in a randomized clinical trial.
Furthermore the LCT processes the initial leukafereses product based on T-cell content.
Dendritic cells
Mature dendritic cells (DCs) have the ability to activate the immune system which is beneficial for anti-tumour immunity.The Laboratory for Cell Therapy and the Department of Immunopathology have developed a protocol to generate clinical applicable DCs.
