Empowered Patient Podcast Karen Jagoda

Dave Mehalick, Chairman, Co-Founder, President, and CEO of Coeptis Therapeutics, focuses on developing cell therapies for oncology and respiratory diseases. They aim to create a universal cell therapy that can be used for various types of cancer and move it from a later line of treatment to a frontline therapy. The company has developed a unique CAR therapy called SNAP-CAR, which utilizes off-the-shelf cells and a targeting mechanism to attack cancer cells at different points, making it difficult for the cells to mutate and evade treatment. Coeptis is conducting clinical trials using its cell generation platform, including a trial for COVID-19 patients and a trial for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) patients.
Dave explains, "Coeptis is a cell therapy company mainly focused on oncology, although we have recently broadened into respiratory disease. And really, the prime mission of the company would be to what we would term universalized cell therapy to make it available for the masses. Right now, cell therapy has to be very highly targeted to certain people. It’s extremely expensive. With a lot of the technologies that Coeptis has brought together under one roof, we feel it will solve a lot of those issues and make it not only available to mostly all people but also move it from a third, fourth, and fifth-line therapy for different issues, all the way up to a frontline therapy."
"We were able to license an amazing cutting-edge, next-generation CAR therapy developed at the University of Pittsburgh called SNAP-CAR. If you are familiar with CAR therapies such as CAR T, which have developed over the years, I believe it was initially founded at the University of Pennsylvania. Still, CAR T therapy has been rather successful in being able to attack previously thought of incurable cancers and create great results for patients."
"The interesting thing about a CAR T is that each CAR T is a very highly specialized cellular structure that is designed to target a very specific point on a very specific cancer. What happens with that is when you devise it, it will be used for this exact area. And what the scientists at the University of Pittsburgh and in collaboration with Coeptis now have designed is a CAR, which is the cellular CAR, the construct that is universal. What I mean by that is it’s not initially targeting anything on a cell. We’ve created the CAR that we attach to the effector cell, whether it be a natural killer or a T cell, a macrophage, etc. However, CAR does not instantly attack anything until we use a targeting mechanism. In this case, we’re utilizing monoclonal antibodies right now that fuses with the CAR and then pulls that into attack itself. So why is that important?"
#Coeptistx #Oncology #OncNews #CellTherapy #Immunotherapy #CART #CARNK #NKCells #AML #MDS #COVID
Coeptistx.com
Listen to the podcast here
 

Dave Mehalick, Chairman, Co-Founder, President, and CEO of Coeptis Therapeutics, focuses on developing cell therapies for oncology and respiratory diseases. They aim to create a universal cell therapy that can be used for various types of cancer and move it from a later line of treatment to a frontline therapy. The company has developed a unique CAR therapy called SNAP-CAR, which utilizes off-the-shelf cells and a targeting mechanism to attack cancer cells at different points, making it difficult for the cells to mutate and evade treatment. Coeptis is conducting clinical trials using its cell generation platform, including a trial for COVID-19 patients and a trial for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) patients.
Dave explains, "Coeptis is a cell therapy company mainly focused on oncology, although we have recently broadened into respiratory disease. And really, the prime mission of the company would be to what we would term universalized cell therapy to make it available for the masses. Right now, cell therapy has to be very highly targeted to certain people. It’s extremely expensive. With a lot of the technologies that Coeptis has brought together under one roof, we feel it will solve a lot of those issues and make it not only available to mostly all people but also move it from a third, fourth, and fifth-line therapy for different issues, all the way up to a frontline therapy."
"We were able to license an amazing cutting-edge, next-generation CAR therapy developed at the University of Pittsburgh called SNAP-CAR. If you are familiar with CAR therapies such as CAR T, which have developed over the years, I believe it was initially founded at the University of Pennsylvania. Still, CAR T therapy has been rather successful in being able to attack previously thought of incurable cancers and create great results for patients."
"The interesting thing about a CAR T is that each CAR T is a very highly specialized cellular structure that is designed to target a very specific point on a very specific cancer. What happens with that is when you devise it, it will be used for this exact area. And what the scientists at the University of Pittsburgh and in collaboration with Coeptis now have designed is a CAR, which is the cellular CAR, the construct that is universal. What I mean by that is it’s not initially targeting anything on a cell. We’ve created the CAR that we attach to the effector cell, whether it be a natural killer or a T cell, a macrophage, etc. However, CAR does not instantly attack anything until we use a targeting mechanism. In this case, we’re utilizing monoclonal antibodies right now that fuses with the CAR and then pulls that into attack itself. So why is that important?"
#Coeptistx #Oncology #OncNews #CellTherapy #Immunotherapy #CART #CARNK #NKCells #AML #MDS #COVID
coeptistx.com
Download the transcript here

Ross Bundy, President and CEO of CRISPR QC, shines a light on the current state of CRISPR gene editing technology and how the field has advanced rapidly since the discovery of CRISPR's potential to edit the human genome. The focus of CRISPR technology has primarily been on curing rare and genetic diseases, but there is also potential for targeting cancer tumors' resistance to chemotherapy and the development of customized therapies for various indications. The services offered by CRISPR QC include a unique sensor platform and data analytics capability to monitor and control the gene editing process. The company aims to create a database of information to improve the understanding and control of CRISPR chemistry. The CRISPR Chip is a new semiconductor technology that integrates carbon electronics to analyze complex biological processes.
Ross explains, "What we find is that it can be very difficult to get that chemistry to target exactly in the right place. We don’t know yet how much the right amount is. Is it too much, too much? Is too little, too little? How do we get all these correctly into the cell? How do we deliver them to the right place? Sometimes CRISPR edits in the wrong place, it can edit multiple places across the genome, the target, and a few other places we don’t want to edit, and the cell goes and repairs it, and now we’ve changed the DNA somewhere else. So we definitely don’t want that. If we’re going to edit DNA, we want to edit just the part we want, and we don’t want to change anything else. So, the challenge today is that we don’t know exactly how this chemistry works. It is still a very new field."
"We’re saying, can we open up that black box and say, here’s all the gears and all the levers, all the buttons, and the pharma companies can now then precisely control this chemistry and deliver the result that they want. So that’s what we’re able to start doing for the field. This is the maturation of a new science coming out, proving it’s capable, and now moving to an industrial process. We’re helping transition that industrial process."
#CRISPRQC #CRISPR #CRISPRCas9 #GeneEditing #CellularGeneTherapy
CRISPRQC.com
Listen to the podcast here

 

Ross Bundy, President and CEO of CRISPR QC, shines a light on the current state of CRISPR gene editing technology and how the field has advanced rapidly since the discovery of CRISPR's potential to edit the human genome. The focus of CRISPR technology has primarily been on curing rare and genetic diseases, but there is also potential for targeting cancer tumors' resistance to chemotherapy and the development of customized therapies for various indications. The services offered by CRISPR QC include a unique sensor platform and data analytics capability to monitor and control the gene editing process. The company aims to create a database of information to improve the understanding and control of CRISPR chemistry. The CRISPR Chip is a new semiconductor technology that integrates carbon electronics to analyze complex biological processes.
Ross explains, "What we find is that it can be very difficult to get that chemistry to target exactly in the right place. We don’t know yet how much the right amount is. Is it too much, too much? Is too little, too little? How do we get all these correctly into the cell? How do we deliver them to the right place? Sometimes CRISPR edits in the wrong place, it can edit multiple places across the genome, the target, and a few other places we don’t want to edit, and the cell goes and repairs it, and now we’ve changed the DNA somewhere else. So we definitely don’t want that. If we’re going to edit DNA, we want to edit just the part we want, and we don’t want to change anything else. So, the challenge today is that we don’t know exactly how this chemistry works. It is still a very new field."
"We’re saying, can we open up that black box and say, here’s all the gears and all the levers, all the buttons, and the pharma companies can now then precisely control this chemistry and deliver the result that they want. So that’s what we’re able to start doing for the field. This is the maturation of a new science coming out, proving it’s capable, and now moving to an industrial process. We’re helping transition that industrial process."
#CRISPRQC #CRISPR #CRISPRCas9 #GeneEditing #CellularGeneTherapy
CRISPRQC.com
Download the transcript here

 

Nicolas Poirier, CEO of OSE Immunotherapeutics, uses immunology and molecular engineering to develop innovative immunotherapies for oncology, inflammation, autoimmune diseases, and organ transplant.  The same immune cells, lymphocytes and macrophages, are involved in both immuno-oncology and immuno-inflammation, and OSE aims to re-educate these cells to recognize and eliminate cancer cells or restore immune tolerance in autoimmune diseases. He also discusses the potential of cancer vaccines in re-educating the immune system to target cancer cells, and the importance of combination therapies in improving treatment outcomes.
Nicolas explains, "There are two big families in the immune system. We have the adaptive immunity generated by lymphocytes. We have several types of lymphocytes: T-lymphocytes, B-lymphocytes, and so on. This is a very specific immune response that humans and other species have developed to recognize, very specifically some antigens from viruses, for tumors, and so on. We can control these cells."
"On the other side, there is innate immunity composed of macrophages, NK cells, or others, and this is a non-specific immune response that recognizes either danger signals or pathogen signals. These are mostly the elements that are implicated in many chronic inflammatory diseases. Still, there are also some elements that we can manipulate or re-educate in oncology to help the immune system globally work better. Because these lymphocytes and these macrophages, this adaptive immunity or innate immunity, work together, and all together, we can re-educate and orchestrate this immune response in a good direction."
 "There's a big promise and big hope now in the field of therapeutic cancer vaccines. It's important to understand that it's therapeutic. It means we're not yet able to prevent cancer development, this might be in the future, but we use cancer vaccines to re-educate the immune system of patients that have developed a tumor. It's a therapeutic drug, and we're developing one of the most advanced therapeutic cancer vaccines in the world with the upcoming new registration phase three in lung cancer patients in second line."
#OSEImmunotherapeutics #Cancer #LungCancer #CancerVaccine #ImmuneSystem #Macrophages #Inflammation #InflammatoryDisease

ose-immuno.com
Listen to the podcast here

Nicolas Poirier, CEO of OSE Immunotherapeutics, uses immunology and molecular engineering to develop innovative immunotherapies for oncology, inflammation, autoimmune diseases, and organ transplant.  The same immune cells, lymphocytes and macrophages, are involved in both immuno-oncology and immuno-inflammation, and OSE aims to re-educate these cells to recognize and eliminate cancer cells or restore immune tolerance in autoimmune diseases. He also discusses the potential of cancer vaccines in re-educating the immune system to target cancer cells, and the importance of combination therapies in improving treatment outcomes.
Nicolas explains, "There are two big families in the immune system. We have the adaptive immunity generated by lymphocytes. We have several types of lymphocytes: T-lymphocytes, B-lymphocytes, and so on. This is a very specific immune response that humans and other species have developed to recognize, very specifically some antigens from viruses, for tumors, and so on. We can control these cells."
"On the other side, there is innate immunity composed of macrophages, NK cells, or others, and this is a non-specific immune response that recognizes either danger signals or pathogen signals. These are mostly the elements that are implicated in many chronic inflammatory diseases. Still, there are also some elements that we can manipulate or re-educate in oncology to help the immune system globally work better. Because these lymphocytes and these macrophages, this adaptive immunity or innate immunity, work together, and all together, we can re-educate and orchestrate this immune response in a good direction."
 "There's a big promise and big hope now in the field of therapeutic cancer vaccines. It's important to understand that it's therapeutic. It means we're not yet able to prevent cancer development, this might be in the future, but we use cancer vaccines to re-educate the immune system of patients that have developed a tumor. It's a therapeutic drug, and we're developing one of the most advanced therapeutic cancer vaccines in the world with the upcoming new registration phase three in lung cancer patients in second line."
#OSEImmunotherapeutics #Cancer #LungCancer #CancerVaccine #ImmuneSystem #Macrophages #Inflammation #InflammatoryDisease

ose-immuno.com
Download the transcript here