New technologies in focus at ASGCT

ToolGen Inc. (KONEX:199800), Editas Medicine Inc. (NASDAQ:EDIT) and Selecta Biosciences Inc. (NASDAQ:SELB) each spotlighted new technologies and techniques at the American Society for Gene and Cell Therapy (ASGCT) meeting in Washington, D.C.

ToolGen Inc. showed CRISPR-based gene editing could be used to engineer more specific and efficient chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells. Researchers used CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing to knock out diacylglycerol kinase alpha (DGK alpha), a tolerance-associated gene, in human primary T cells. The resultant gene-edited CAR T cells were less sensitive to immunosuppressive conditions and more responsive against tumor cells compared with unmodified CAR T cells...