Two research teams at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons have received funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub New York. The funding is intended to support the development of advanced personalized cell therapies targeting cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Aimee Payne, chair of the Department of Dermatology, is leading a project focused on creating cell therapies to eliminate harmful cells in patients with autoimmune diseases such as pemphigus and myasthenia gravis. Meanwhile, Catherine Spina, an assistant professor of radiation oncology, along with Jeremy Worley, an assistant professor of systems biology, are working on adapting chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR T) therapy for treating solid tumors. This therapy has been successful in treating blood cancers but faces challenges with solid tumors.
The two teams are part of nine new investigators receiving funding from the Investigator Program at CZ Biohub NY. The program aims to provide unrestricted funding to scientists and technologists from institutions like Columbia, Rockefeller, and Yale for innovative research in systems immunology. CZ Biohub NY began its operations in 2023 with a mission to harness immune cells for detecting, preventing, and treating age-related diseases.
CAR T therapy involves removing T cells from a patient, genetically engineering them to better target leukemic cells, and then reinfusing them into the patient. While effective against blood cancers, CAR T therapy struggles with solid tumors due to issues with tumor infiltration or cellular exhaustion.
Spina and Worley’s team will use a computational method called VIPER to identify key regulatory proteins that might improve CAR T cell performance against solid tumors. “These studies…will provide critical proof-of-concept data needed for improving cancer immunotherapy outcomes,” Spina notes.
For autoimmune diseases affecting nearly one in ten Americans, current treatments suppress the entire immune system. Payne’s team is developing chimeric autoantibody receptor T cell (CAAR T) therapy aimed at attacking disease-causing autoimmune cells while sparing healthy ones. Early trials show promise but also indicate potential side effects.
Payne explains that CAAR T therapy provides an opportunity to study immune engineering within autoimmune disease patients: “Pairing this knowledge with our experience using CAR T for…B cell cancers will help us identify strategies for improving…precision cellular immunotherapies.”
Additionally, Tal Danino from Columbia School of Engineering has received funding from CZI Biohub NY for his work on engineered bacteria that recruit CAR T cells to otherwise inaccessible tumors.
