The field of cell and gene therapy is a fast-moving, ever-changing landscape. Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies takes pride in leading the way with comprehensive manufacturing strategies, customized solutions and performance-focused products to help therapy innovators bring the next generation of cell and gene therapies within reach for more patients.
Congratulations to the ATMI Grant 2020 Winner
Chung-Gyu Park, MD, PhD
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Seoul National University College of Medicine
Department of Biomedical Sciences
Professor Park has worked in immune tolerance, transplantation immunology and exosome research. His research on xenotransplantation has been sponsored by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Korea, where he has contributed to the clinical realization of xenotransplantation for 15 years through the Xenotransplantation Research Center (XRC). He served as a Councilor of the International Xenotransplantation Association (2011-2015) and is now Associate Editor of Xenotransplantation journal. As an immunologist, he has served as the President of the Korean Association for Immunologists (2016-2017) and is currently a Vice President of the Korean Association of Laboratory Animal Science. He has published over 160 articles in SCI-indexed academic journals.
I am overjoyed to be awarded the winner of the ATMI Grant 2020 and I'd like to thank Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies for this wonderful opportunity. This collaboration will expedite our exosome research work from in vitro and small animal studies to human clinical trials for autoimmune disease treatment. My team and I are looking forward to working closely with scientists from Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies to ensure success of this project.
Proposal Summary
Exosomes are a viable cell-free treatment strategy due to their good product stability and bioactivity retention over long duration and harsh conditions. Professor Park’s team recently discovered that mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-derived exosomes can regulate the immune activity of Th17 cells and induce depolarization in vitro, while showing clinical improvement when administrated in an experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) mouse model. Accordingly, their goal is to set up a Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP)-compliant manufacturing process to mass-produce human MSC-derived exosomes for clinical application in autoimmune diseases. Professor Park believes that the Quantum® Cell Expansion System can help improve the overall productivity and efficiency of exosome production while reducing the batch-to-batch variability and contamination risks compared to manual cell culture.
About the Grant
Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies’ ATMI 2020 Grant awards up to USD $50,000 to principal investigators, scientists, researchers and clinicians exclusively from the Asia Pacific region to advance the translational research and process transfer, development, scale-up and automation of novel cell and gene therapy applications using Quantum.
In addition to the USD $50,000 grant, the winner will receive up to 12 disposable sets valued at USD $50,000 and one Quantum device to use for the duration of the grant project.
The project will be completed through a one-year collaborative research partnership between Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies and the successful grant applicant. The initial grant may be renewable for additional years, depending on research outcome, progress reports and amended applications.
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