One area of our research that I find particularly exciting is the intersection of stem cells and gamma-delta (γδ) T-cell cancer therapy.
γδ T cells are unusual immune cells. Unlike conventional T cells, they can recognize many stressed or malignant cells without relying on classical HLA-mediated antigen recognition—one reason they are being investigated as potential “off-the-shelf” cancer therapies.
Our work shows that we can isolate and activate functional γδ T cells from the peripheral blood of healthy donors in a simple way, making the cells capable of killing liver cancer cells in vitro.
For multiple reasons, some personal, I am immensely passionate about using stem cells not simply to regenerate tissue, but as a platform for generating specialized therapeutic cells to cure cancer.
The implications could be significant. safer cells, significantly cheaper, better at killing cancer.
It is early science—but an important direction for the field, and one we are actively working to advance.