About This Project
Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) measures the electrical properties of cells by applying a small AC signal and observing the response. CAR T cells, modified immune cells engineered to attack cancer, vary in effectiveness, leading to inconsistent treatment. This project tests if EIS can reveal CAR T cell potency by detecting unique bioelectrical signatures, allowing the selection of potent, CAR T cells. This could improve treatment success and quality control in CAR T cell production.
Ask the Scientists
Join The DiscussionWhat is the context of this research?
The context of this project centers on improving CAR T cell therapy by enhancing our ability to assess and select potent cells for treatment. CAR T cell therapy is an advanced cancer treatment, but its effectiveness can vary significantly, often due to the presence of non-potent cells that lack the ability to target cancer cells effectively. To address this, our project explores the use of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) to measure cell potency as a quality control step within CAR T cell manufacturing. Given the need for consistent therapeutic efficacy, this project aims to improve quality control processes, reduce treatment variability, and ultimately support the development of more reliable cancer therapies.
What is the significance of this project?
The significance of this project lies in its potential to address one of the major challenges in CAR T cell therapy: the variability in treatment effectiveness due to non-potent cells. By developing a method to assess and select potent CAR T cells using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), this project could significantly improve the consistency and reliability of CAR T cell therapies. Enhancing quality control during manufacturing ensures that only effective cells are used, which may lead to higher therapeutic success rates and better outcomes for cancer patients. Additionally, this approach could help standardize CAR T cell production, making it more accessible and reliable in clinical settings.
What are the goals of the project?
Develop a reliable method to assess CAR T cell potency using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) to distinguish between potent and non-potent cells.
Enhance quality control in the CAR T cell manufacturing process by integrating potency testing to ensure only the most effective cells are selected for therapy.
Reduce variability in treatment outcomes by ensuring that only CAR T cells capable of effectively targeting cancer cells are used, leading to more consistent therapeutic efficacy.
Improve the reliability and standardization of CAR T cell therapies, which could ultimately make these treatments more accessible and effective for patients globally.
Budget
The project is in its final stages, but we need to work at a location nearly 3 hours away by car, which will incur additional expenses that we currently cannot cover. Additionally, we need funding for a flow cytometry assay to separate CAR T cells from non-transfected (293T) cells, as well as consumables for cell culture, such as serum, pipettes, and tips. Finally, we need access to a microscope to observe CAR T cell interactions with cancer cells. This support would allow us to relocate for 6 months, complete the pending experiments, and finish the project within the timeline.
Endorsed by
Project Timeline
I have the lentiviral particles which will be used for the development of CAR T cells. The following procedures entail the cultivation of 293T cells which will be used to transfect with CAR genes. For CAR T cells, flow cytometry will be done to enrich the transfected T cell population for assay purposes. In order to obtain bioelectric data that will be using EIS, I will first collect active and inactive CAR T cells, confirm their results with 36 hour killing assay test and analyze the data.
Dec 02, 2024
Project Launched
Jan 01, 2025
Begin culturing HEK 293T cells, which will be used to create CAR T cells.
Jan 15, 2025
Use 293T cells along with lentiviral particles to create CAR T cells through transfection.
Feb 01, 2025
Separate CAR T cells from 293T cells using a flow cytometer.
Apr 30, 2025
Proceed with collecting data from active and inactive CAR T cells to obtain their spectra and bioelectric signatures.
Meet the Team
Marco Becerra
My passion is to improve the quality of people’s lives through research and innovation. My previous experience working as a research assistant provided me skills that help to contribute to other people and my professional growth. Development a new biosensing platform to improve the early detection of cancer cells in blood to reduce the deaths by cancer, created in me a new concept to help people. Assisting undergraduate students to improve their skills in a laboratory work and help to reach internship experiences makes me feeling better to help to improve their own goals and skills. As a teacher assistant I learned how to communicate with students and explain complex subjects in easy words. I also developed a new class program to improve the knowledge and to ease the apprenticeship.https://www.linkedin.com/in/ma...
Lab Notes
Nothing posted yet.
Additional Information
This project was funded by CMAT in 2020, and within a year, we concluded that the technique used could effectively distinguish T cells from CAR T cells. Building on this, we sought to determine if potent CAR T cells could be isolated from a mixed batch. To achieve this, several steps were undertaken: first, we cultured bacteria with the plasmid required to create lentiviral particles for cell transfection to express CAR in the cells. Second, we purified the plasmids to obtain high-purity DNA, measured DNA density, and then used it to create lentiviral particles with the CAR gene. Finally, we successfully transduced T cells with the CAR gene using the lentivirus.
Project Backers
- 1Backers
- 1%Funded
- $100Total Donations
- $100.00Average Donation
