Comparing activation methods to yield clinical-scale expansion of gamma delta T cells

Gamma delta T cells have the inherent ability to infiltrate solid tumors and directly recognize and kill transformed cells independently of HLA-antigen presentation. Moreover, gamma delta T cells do not cause graft-versus-host disease and provide a promising platform for the development of T cell therapies targeting solid tumors. However, due to the low prevalence of gamma delta T cells in peripheral blood, it remains a challenge to generate enough gamma delta T cells to produce a clinical dose.

In this presentation, data from the use of two distinct methods to generate billions of gamma delta T cells from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) is compared. The first method uses zoledronic acid as the activating agent to induce the expansion of more than 1 x 10^9 Vd2+ T cells within 14 days, starting from cryopreserved PBMCs. In the second approach, either aß T cells are specifically depleted from PBMCs or gamma delta T cells are isolated via negative selection before anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 co-stimulation, generating billions of gamma delta T cells–including both Vd1+ and Vd2+ T cell subsets. The expanded gamma delta T cells exhibit innate cytotoxicity towards the K562 cell line and produce cytokines including IFN-Gamma and TNF-a. Collectively, these data indicate that both methods may be utilized to generate enough gamma delta T cells to support clinical applications.

• Learn about two methods to generate billions of gamma delta T cells from PBMCs to support clinical applications
• Find out how an anti-CD3/anti-CD28 activation method supports high lentivirus transduction of gamma delta T cells 
• See data surrounding the production of Vdelta1+ and Vdelta2+ T cell subsets from PBMCs using multiple methods

Chengkang Zhang

Associate Director, R&D at Lonza BioScience Solutions

Dr Chengkang (CK) Zhang is the R&D Associate Director at Lonza working on the development of new cell culture media to support innovative cell therapies. He has extensive research and product development experience in mammalian cell culture technology and stem cell biology. Dr Zhang is the inventor of several patents on cell culture technology. He graduated from Peking University and earned a PhD studying gene transcriptional regulation at the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Science.