Grants awarded to leading…

Three investigators at Baylor College of Medicine's (BCM) Center for Cell and Gene Therapy Institute (CAGT) have been awarded G-Rex Grants totaling $475,000 by ScaleReady, in collaboration with Wilson Wolf Manufacturing and Bio-Techne Corporation and CellReady.

Dr. Ann Leen, a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at BCM's CAGT, received a $275,000 G-Rex Grant for process development and IND enabling studies related to tumor-associated neoantigen specific T cell therapies for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) in pre- and post-hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplant. Dr. Leen has been with BCM's CAGT since 2002, is the senior or co-author on more than 100 publications, is a named inventor on 14 published patents (including several relating to G-Rex), served as the principal investigator on more than 15 clinical trials using "first in human" cell therapies, and is a co-founder of two T cell therapy companies (Allovir and Marker Therapeutics).

Dr. Katie McKenna, an Assistant Professor at BCM's CAGT, received a $100,000 G-Rex Grant to develop a novel G-Rex based approach for culturing three dimensional (3D) solid tumor spheroids. Dr. McKenna's vision is to establish these 3D tumor spheroid models as a reliable representation of the tumor microenvironment (TME) compared to in vivo murine studies that traditionally accompany an Investigational New Drug (IND) application. Dr. McKenna will begin by establishing organoid models for pancreatic, breast, and lunger cancer tissues before expanding to other tumor models.

Dr. Dimitrios Laurin Wagner, a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor at BCM's CAGT, and Dr. Marie Pouzolles, Staff Scientist in the Wagner Lab, received a $100,000 G-Rex Grant to develop innovative gene editing platforms to create potent immune cell therapies. Specifically, the G-Rex Grant will be deployed to scale up the manufacture of non-viral gene edited T cells, leveraging their optimized non-viral CRISPR-Cas-based method for CAR insertion into specific loci of primary human T cells. Dr. Wagner received his M.D., Ph.D. from Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin where he was the head of Research and Development at the Berlin Center for Advanced Therapies and a junior group leader at the Berlin Institutes of Health Center for Regenerative Therapies. At BCM's CAGT, Dr. Wagner and Dr. Pouzolles plan to move genome editing into the clinics to create transformative anti-cancer cell therapies.

"Baylor's Center for Cell and Gene Therapy has long been at the forefront of Cell and Gene Therapy innovation and played a pivotal role in the success of G-Rex technology. G-Rex would not have become the gold standard for T cell therapy manufacturing without the input and help we received from the early adopters at Baylor. It's gratifying to know that our G-Rex Grant program will help these accomplished investigators advance their scientific objectives" said John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Wolf Manufacturing and co-inventor of G-Rex.

ScaleReady's G-Rex Grant Program is a $20M initiative to advance the state of cell and gene-modified cell therapy (CGT) development and manufacturing by awarding individual Grant Awards worth up to $300,000. G-Rex Grant Recipients also gain access to exclusive support from ScaleReady's growing consortium of G-Rex Grant Partners who bring best-in-class tools and technologies as well as unparalleled knowledge and expertise in the areas of cGMP manufacturing, quality and regulatory affairs, CGT business operations, and more.