Imagine if we could reprogram your immune cells to fight cancer while they are still inside your body, instead of taking them out to a lab. It's like sending a tiny, guided delivery truck with a set of instructions directly to the right cells. This removes the need for expensive hospital stays and complex lab manufacturing.
Current CAR-T therapies are too expensive and complex for the general population due to the need for ex vivo manufacturing and specialized hospital infrastructure.
A targeted nanoparticle platform combining a T cell binder-coated lipid nanoparticle and a transposon-based gene editing system.
If you are a developer dealing with the high cost and complexity of ex vivo manufacturing — this project developed a targeted nanoparticle system that creates CAR-T cells directly in the patient. This reduces the need for specialized clinical facilities and preconditioning chemotherapy.
If you are a specialist dealing with low transfection efficiency in T cells — this project developed a lipid nanoparticle platform that achieved 60-70% transfection levels. This significantly exceeds previously reported non-viral DNA transfection levels in literature.
If you are a clinic dealing with limited patient access to CAR-T due to price and infrastructure — this project developed an in vivo programming technology. This allows for treatment in an out-patient setting, making therapy more affordable and scalable.
By moving the cell engineering process from a lab (ex vivo) to inside the patient (in vivo), the technology circumvents expensive manufacturing and the need for highly specialized clinical facilities.
The project objective includes exploring small-scale synthesis and developing a preliminary business plan to address scalability and accessibility.
Based on available project data, the project utilizes a proprietary T cell binder-coated lipid nanoparticle, but specific licensing terms are not provided.
The consortium includes SINTEF, which provides expertise on regulatory standards for nucleic acid therapeutics.
The project is active from 2023-04-01 to 2026-07-31, with some tasks already performed ahead of schedule.
The consortium is well-balanced for a translation project, consisting of 7 partners across 5 countries. It maintains a 29% industry ratio with 2 SMEs, blending academic research from 4 universities with specialized technical support from research institutes and machine learning experts (QSAR) to optimize nanoparticle performance.
Contact Universiteit Utrecht regarding the NANO-ENGINE platform
Contact us to explore licensing opportunities for in vivo CAR-T delivery.
