This is about a revolutionary way of actually
treating patients with cancer.
This is about taking your cellular material
and asking it to do something for you.
And that is actually to go and seek, find,
and destroy these cancer cells.
We don't have to, like, make things and put
them in the body, like, that are medical devices.
We can actually take biological material and
actually put that back in the body and ask
them to do the things that we want them to
do.
So when we're talking about cell therapy,
we're asking, the cells in the body to do
something.
 
We're talking about the immune cells… one
specific immune cell, the T-cell.
Here's a sick patient and they have cancer,
and we're going to take their material, their
T-cells and we're going to supercharge those
T-cells.
And in order to do that, we have to take the
cells out of their body and we're going to
have to manipulate those cells.
We're going to have to make them smart and
in order to make them smart, we're going to
do genetic engineering on those T-cells.
And we're going to create the DNA that is
necessary for those T-cells to recognize the
cancer cells.
So what happens is the patient will show up
to their doctor's office if they're diagnosed
with cancer
blood cells are removed from the patient through
a process called apheresis, and this apheresis
product is collected in a bag…
The blood essentially has targeted cell-types
we're interested in.
These are the immune cells, the T-cells.
These are the cells that are actually going
to fight the cancer cells.
We have to sort of supercharge those T-cells.
We have to do what's called reprogram them,
genetically modify them, introduce DNA into
these cells that allow these cells to then
specifically, target cancer cells, but that's
not, that's not it yet.
These cells are then transferred into a bioreactor
platform…
… in order to make these cells happy, we
grow them up in what we call media, Liquid
Media, and that the liquid media has the right
nutrients 
and vitamins.
That particular step there can take a couple
of days.
To grow up these cells in that environment
and then,these cells are then removed from
the bioreactor, we have to wash them, we have
to concentrate them, we have to give them
the right formulation, as we call it, to then
administer back into the, into the patient.
The patient is then called back in and they
get their cells infused.
we are giving them those supercharged cells
that they need to kind of kickstart   what
needs to happen here.
...every cancer cell has a certain phenotype
associated with it so certain surface markers
will allow us to say, "That is a cancer cell."
In the instance of leukemia for example, there
is a specific target called CD-19 that is
expressed on these tumor cells and so what
we can do is we can genetically engineer the
T-cells to specifically target the CD-19 receptor
So, that's how we're able to specifically
target seek, find, and destroy those cancer
cells.
Today, it only takes one dose to treat patients
and see recovers, and see curative rates in
anywhere between 50% to 80%.
So to me, that's actually translating into
we've actually created a different, you know,
roadmap for that, for that patient.
Despite the fact that we've made tremendous,
headway when it comes to the clinical science
and clinical development of these cell therapy
products, there still remains challenges that
are associated with this and largely speaking,
they're related to manufacturability.
This is a very laborious process.
It requires people and it requires different
materials, etc, to actually take it from Point-A
to Point-B to Point-C…
It's literally begged, borrowed, and stolen
from different adjacent industries to, to
sort of repurpose technology solutions to
allow for the manufacturing of this product!
And so not, you know, not one slice fits all
anymore, and we're okay with that.
We're okay with about, this is a personalized
treatment for you.
what we've really done is really push the
envelope in terms of what regeneration really
can mean to, to the treatment and the care
in patients.
We don't have to, like, make things and put
them in the body, like, that are medical devices.
We can actually take biological material and
actually put that back in the body and ask
them to do the things that we want them to
do.
I think cell therapy holds the promise of
providing instructions to different cell-types
to do things that we normally have lost the
function to do and we want sort of, that gain-a-function
back, etc.
I think one very important point about cell
therapy, it's truly personalized medicine
so what we've done today saying, "You present
yourself with cancer today but we are going
to create a treatment for you that is truly
personalized.
We understand how you present yourself in
your cancer.
the science has accelerated.
We're learning a lot every single day in terms
of how cancers present themselves, in addition
to how we can treat those cancers, but there's
so much more that we need to learn.
we know how to genetically engineer T-cells
to seek, find, and kill those cancer cells.
So, cell therapy is about really revolutionizing
the way that we treat cancer.
I think this is where we have really changed
the way that we're looking at how we care
for our patients and how we treat  them in
giving them the best treatment in care and
ultimately, looking towards that, that endpoint,
which is curing your cancer.
And I think this is where, we've, you know
... big step change in our thinking.
