UFC: Ultimate Fighting Cells

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in America; in 2018 alone, 1.7 million people were newly diagnosed and roughly 600,000 people died of the disease. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a devastating form of cancer that effects the body’s blood producing tissues, targets around 6,000 victims yearly with a large majority being children. With ALL, mutations cause bone marrow to make too many immature lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell); thus, severely limiting the body’s immune response. Chemotherapy has been the most common form of treatment; however, it is very taxing on the body. An emerging treatment that is less strenuous on the body is chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-Cell therapy. CAR T therapy is a form of treatment where blood is taken from a patient and T-cells are separated. The T-cells are then genetically modified with a viral vector to express a chimeric antigen receptor that will recognize and attack leukemia cells. The newly engineered T-cells will then be administered back to the patient intravenously. Although this treatment has yielded great results medically, the treatment itself is very expensive, costing almost half a million dollars. In 2017, the FDA approved Kymriah and Yescarta from Novartis and Gilead, respectively, to lead as CAR T therapy treatments. Our project plans to manufacture 973 doses of Kymriah that could be used in the treatment for children and young adults affected by acute lymphoblast leukemia. By increasing the number of doses per year the price of the treatment will be more affordable to families. The production site of this treatment will be located in Muncie, Indiana making it accessible to patients in the Midwest.