Welcome to the Eric Smith Lab for Synthetic Biology and Cellular Engineering

CELLS AS DRUGS The dual-mission of our pre-clinical lab group is (1) to design and evaluate novel approaches to advance the field of adoptive cellular therapy, and (2) to rapidly get these therapies into the hands of clinicians to treat cancer patients with the greatest need. The ability to isolate, expand, and in particular genetically manipulate cells for therapeutic purposes endows the field of adoptive cellular therapy unlimited potential. CAR T cell vectors stemming from our research are in phase I and II clinical studies for the treatment of multiple myeloma. While the current breed of cell therapies are a huge leap forward for the treatment of hematologic malignancies, they mark only the earliest stages of the evolution of cellular immunotherapy. The Smith Lab for Synthetic Biology and Cellular Engineering uses the latest advances in gene engineering and cellular manipulation to design and screen novel strategies and, in close partnership with the Connell O’Reilly GMP Cell Manipulation Core Facility at Dana-Farber, translate these advances to the clinic.
News


2021-1-20: Announced to coincide with President Biden’s inauguration, honored to be awarded the i3 Immuno-engineering to Improve Immunotherapy grant stemming from Moonshot initiative funding. Link here.
2020-12-6: ASH 2020 Annual meeting: Dr. Smith lectures and participates in live Q&A panel session on the Future of Immunotherapy for MM.
2020-11-17: Dr. Smith featured in DFCI’s “Inside the Institute” Link here.
2020-11-4: Kudos to Vishal Khairnar, PhD for his role in the Nature paper: IFITM3 functions as a PIP3 scaffold to amplify PI3K signaling in B cells. We are excited to have you as part of our group.
2020-10-26: Congrats to Dr. Kartika Venugopal for successfully defending her PhD thesis at Univ Florida! Next stop: Smith lab. Looking forward to you joining our lab team.
2020-09-18: CAR T cell trial targeting GPRC5D stemming from Dr. Smith’s pre-clinical work is open at MSKCC. This is the first cell therapy trial targeting GPRC5D. Congrats to Sham Mailankody (PI) and the MSKCC cell engineering and regulatory team, as well as our BMS collaborators for this accomplishment. Link here.
2020-08-21: Welcome DFCI Heme/Onc first-year fellows! Dr. Smith teaches new fellows about CAR T cell therapies in the clinic and advances coming out of the lab.
2020-07-06: Congratulations Carlos Fernandez and all our collaborators for the impressive work leading to "Defining an Optimal Dual-Targeted CAR T Cell Therapy Approach Simultaneously Targeting BCMA and GPRC5D to Prevent BCMA-Escape Driven Relapse in Multiple Myeloma" in Blood Cancer Discovery!! Carlos' work elucidates important lessons for how dual-targeted CAR design impacts function in settings of varying antigen expression and uncovers some interesting biology underpinning the differences. Link here.
2020-07: The SITC consensus statement on immunotherapy for myeloma is published (Dr. Smith co-author). Provides guidelines on all aspects of treatment with and management of toxicities of immunotherapy for MM. Link here.
2020-06-01: Congrats to Sham Mailankody and the Orva-Cel (formerly JCARH125) team for an outstanding oral presentation at ASCO 2020 reporting an exciting update on clinical outcomes with BCMA-targeted CAR T cells stemming from our lab work --- >90% response rate in heavily pre-treated patients.
2020-05-11: Dr. Smith presents at the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy Annual Meeting (virtual) on BCMA targeted CAR T cells and beyond.
2019-12-09: Congrats to Andrew Cowan (Fred Hutch) on the oral presentation of his clinical investigation "Efficacy and Safety of Fully Human Bcma CAR T Cells in Combination with a Gamma Secretase Inhibitor to Increase BCMA Surface Expression in Patients with Relapsed or Refractory Multiple Myeloma" using a vector stemming from the work of our group
2019-12-08: Congrats to Carlos Fernandez on an outstanding oral presentation of our pre-clinical work: Optimal dual-targeted CAR construct simultaneously targeting BCMA and GPRC5D prevents BCMA-escape driven relapse in MM which was additionally featured in the Best of ASH CAR T cells; and the MM immunotherapy educational sessions