Innate: Teaching the immune system

Very few methods have succeeded in manipulating the human immune system to handle new diseases on its own. Innate Pharma SAS has developed a new class of small molecules that stimulate specific subsets of so-called "non-conventional lymphocytes" (NCLs) to make cytotoxic effector cells such as gamma delta cells and natural killer cells. Using these NCLs, Innate thinks it can teach the immune system to recognize diseases, like cancer, that evade the immune system.

NCLs differ from conventional lymphocytes in that they can achieve an immune response without the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). Normally, MHC binds to antigens and presents bits of antigen to naïve T lymphocytes, causing clonal expansion of activated immune cells, whose job is to destroy antigen. Using small molecules to manipulate NCLs, Innate is able to trigger antigen-specific clonal expansion of cytotoxic cells through a different mechanism, according to Hervé Brailly, CEO and co-founder...