Data show ability of destabilizing domain technology platform to regulate expression of secreted and membrane-bound proteins in cell therapies
Obsidian Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company dedicated to the development of next-generation cell and gene therapies with pharmacologic operating systems, today announced the presentation of preclinical data on its regulated cytokine programs at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Chicago, IL.
The poster presentation includes in vivo data demonstrating Obsidian’s use of destabilizing domains (DDs) to regulate expression of important immune cytokines, demonstrating the potential to create CAR-T therapies that incorporate controllable functions for enhanced safety and efficacy. DDs are small, fully-human protein domains that confer conditional stability to a fused payload protein that is engineered into a cell or gene therapy product.
“We are excited to present this important data update on our regulated cytokine programs,” said Celeste Richardson, PhD, Vice President and Head of Cell Therapy for Obsidian, who presented the poster at AACR. “While CAR-T and TCR-T have shown impressive promise to date, we believe that our approach with destabilizing domains opens new ways to improve these therapies with pharmacologic operating systems. We are empowering these cell therapies with new functionalities that are controllable by the treating physician, thereby enabling a new generation of safer and more effective cancer treatments.”
The AACR presentation describes the use of DD technology in engineered primary human T cells to control expression of critical immunocytokines in vitro and in vivo, withevidence of in vivo immunephenotypic changes resulting from activation of the regulated cytokine cassettes. The data demonstrate the utility and flexibility of DD technology in regulating both secreted and membrane-bound proteins, which can enable the development of next-generation CAR-T cell products with enhanced efficacy and more favorable safety profiles. Data presented at the meeting include:
About Destabilizing Domains
Obsidian uses Destabilizing
Domains (DDs) to enable pharmacologic regulation of protein activity
for next-generation cell and gene therapies. Obsidian’s DDs are small,
fully-human protein domains that confer conditional stability to a fused
payload protein. In the absence of a specific small-molecule ligand, the
fusion protein is rapidly degraded, whereas in the presence of the
ligand, the fusion protein becomes stable and functional. Obsidian uses
this approach to equip engineered cells with controllable functions that
can be precisely tuned by the administration of non-immunosuppressive,
small-molecule medicines that are readily available and dispensed by the
treating physician.
About Obsidian Therapeutics
Obsidian Therapeutics is a
biotechnology company developing next-generation cell and gene therapies
with pharmacologic operating systems. Based upon founding work on
destabilizing domains by Professor Thomas Wandless, a leading researcher
in chemical and systems biology, Obsidian’s lead programs are CAR-T
products that incorporate controllable functions for enhanced safety and
efficacy. Obsidian was founded in 2015 by Atlas Venture and is funded by
a strong syndicate of venture investors. The company is headquartered in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Please visit www.obsidiantx.com.
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