Prof. Natalia Marek-Trzonkowska, leader of Cancer Immunology Group in the ICCVS patented a new method of regulatory T cell (Treg) culture that she developed in cooperation with her colleagues prof. Piotr Trzonkowski (Head of the Department of Medical Immunology, Medical University of Gdańsk) and prof. Małgorzata Myśliwiec (Head of the Department and Clinic of Paediatrics, Diabetology and Endocrinology, Medical University of Gdańsk). The studies on the method have been supported by grants funded by National Science Centre and Ministry of Science and Higher Education awarded to prof. Marek- Trzonkowska and conducted at the Medical University of Gdańsk.
Tregs are a unique lymphocyte subset that is responsible for suppression of autoimmune reactions. The same team for the first time in human used Tregs in therapy of type 1 diabetes in children. However the cells are present in peripheral blood in small numbers (≈1% of lymphocytes), therefore to be able to use them in therapy, it is necessary to expand them to clinically relevant numbers. Nevertheless, proliferation potential of Tregs is limited as compared with conventional T cells and the cells were found to loose therapeutic properties during the culture in vitro. The MUG’s scientists managed to solve these problems. The method developed has been currently used by them and other teams in Treg based clinical therapies. Now the invention has been protected with the patent.
The main inventor of the method- prof. Natalia Marek- Trzonkowska, leader of Cancer Immunology Group ICCVS, UG and head of Laboratory of Immunoregulation and Clinical Therapies, Department of Family Medicine, MUG