THERA-B

B cells are important therapeutic targets that have yet to be harnessed for gene therapy. Exciting research results show the potential of genetically-engineered B cells for immunotherapy, vaccination or oncology.

THERA-B project assembles 6 partners expert in the fields of B cells, gene therapy, immunotherapy and vaccines to tackle the challenges of developing new therapeutic applications of genetically-engineered B cells and establish the processes for their bioproduction.

One of the possibilities is to engineer the B cell receptor or to reprogram the antigenic recognition of the B cells. B cells with re-programmed antigenic recognition will express and secrete neutralizing immunoglobulins that will be used to treat resistant infectious diseases (HIV, SARS-CoV-2, HBV) in combination with vaccination. This will generate new powerful modalities to neutralize the spread of infections or to eradicate viral reservoirs in the case of resistant chronic infections. Synthetic biology strategies will generate regulatable gene expression cassettes in B cells to achieve tunable systems that can provide on-demand anti-inflammatory effects in auto-immune disorders. In oncology and onco-hematology, complete remission could be achieved by enforcing the effects of immunotherapy with autologous engineered B-cells secreting biomedicines such as therapeutic antibodies.

All of these studies will rely on the development of efficient genetic engineering tools, performant cell culture systems and preclinical models including humanized mice and non-human primates.

Altogether, in 4 years, the THERA-B consortium has the ambition to establish a highly competitive expertise in B cell-immunotherapy in France. Through its associated structures including a LabEx focused on vaccines and two industrial integrators for biotherapy and bioproduction focused on gene therapy and RNAs, THERA-B aims to translate innovation into new clinically-applicable therapies.