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

CELLS AS DRUGS The primary mission of our pre-clinical lab group is to design and evaluate novel adoptive cellular therapy approaches for the treatment of cancer. 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 Connell O’Reilly GMP Cell Manipulation Core Facility at Dana-Farber, rapidly translate these advances to the clinic.
News


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.
2020-06-01: Congrats to Sham Mailankody and the Orva-Cel (formerly JCARH125) team for an outstanding oral presentation reporting an exciting update on clinical outcomes with BCMA-targeted CAR T cells stemming from our lab work.
2020-06-01: The SITC consensus statement on immunotherapy for myeloma accepted for publication (Dr. Smith co-author). Will provide guidelines for on all aspects of treatment with and management of toxicities of immunotherapy for MM (in press).
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