The Conconi Family Immunotherapy Lab, located at the BC Cancer Agency in Victoria, will be the hub of custom immunotherapy treatment production for cancer patients across B.C.
Immunotherapy is an approach that engages the patient’s immune system to effectively eliminate disease.
The lab’s initial focus will be on Adoptive T Cell Therapy. This is a specific form of immunotherapy that amplifies the power of T cells—immune cells responsible for destroying viruses and tumors—extracted from an individual cancer patient. In a highly selective process, scientists identify the T cells already attempting to destroy the cancer and multiply them by the thousands in the lab. The end product is a supercharged batch of a patient’s own T cells that can be delivered through an IV infusion.
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