Treating Cancer and Viral Infections Using Extracellular Vesicles as an Off-the- Shelf Product

SLU ID 17-004 | Production and Use of Natural Killer (NK) Cell-derived Exosomes for Treating Cancer and Infectious Diseases

Background

Natural killer (NK) cells are a small sub-population of circulating white blood cells that act as the first line of defense in the body’s response to tumors and infectious agents.

Overview

Researchers at Saint Louis University (SLU) have optimized a protocol for generating and purifying exosomes with the ability to kill diseased cells, such as tumor cells and virus-infected cells. The exosomes have all of the characteristics of normal natural killer (NK) cells and are derived from the NK3.3 cell line, which is a SLU proprietary NK cell line originating from the peripheral blood of a normal adult male. Because exosomes can be produced in bulk, frozen, and stored indefinitely without losing activity, exosome-based therapies would be more like a pharmaceutical than a biological product and could be given to patients without the need for blood typing or histocompatibility matching.

Benefits

The potential benefits of this technology include:

• Increasing options for cell therapy

• Increasing the number of approaches for treating cancer and infectious disease

• Increasing the effectiveness of therapies

• Increasing the stability of treatments

• Minimizing the need for blood typing and cross matching

• Minimizing adverse effects associated with biologic treatments for cancer and infectious disease

Applications

• This technology has potential application for treating various types of cancer and infectious disease.

Opportunity

Saint Louis University is seeking partners to further develop and commercialize this technology.