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Editas Medicine Presents Data on SLEEK Gene Editing Technology at the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy Annual Meeting
SLEEK results in highly efficient multi-transgene knock-in and enables tunability of transgene expression Double knock-in iNK cells demonstrate strong tumor
About this update from Editas Medicine, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"SLEEK results in highly efficient multi-transgene knock-in and enables tunability of transgene expression Double knock-in iNK cells demonstrate strong tumor killing effect and prolonged in vivo persistence in an ovarian cancer mouse model CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 18, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Editas Medicine, Inc. (Nasdaq: EDIT), a leading genome editing company, will present data later today on its SLEEK (SeLection by Essential- gene Exon Knock-in) gene editing technology during the New Gene Editing Technologies and Applications Session at the 25th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ASGCT) being held in Washington, D.C., and virtually, May 16 – 19, 2022. “Despite recent progress, many cell-based medicines suffer from inefficient knock-in of transgene cargos and high heterogeneity that may reduce efficacy and pose potential safety issues. SLEEK is designed to address these challenges, by achieving efficient knock-in of multiple transgenes, avoiding silencing of transgene cargos over time, and enabling efficient knock-in using non-viral DNA donor templates,” said Mark S. Shearman, Ph.D., Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer, Editas Medicine. “We have used SLEEK to achieve very high knock-in efficiencies in T cells, B cells and natural killer (NK) cells. Our SLEEK-edited, iPSC-derived double knock-in NK cells resulted in impressive tumor clearance, improved survival, and prolonged in vivo persistence in an ovarian cancer mouse model. We believe this technology has the potential to fundamentally improve the next generation of cell-based medicines, beginning with EDIT-202, our first iPSC-derived NK cell oncology program now in preclinical studies.” SLEEK was used to insert CD16 and mbIL-15 cargos into iPSCs which generated NK cells with significantly improved tumor killing and survival compared to wild-type NK cells. SLEEK-edited cells also demonstrated strong antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity and improved persistence, without the need for exogenous cytokine support. Further key findings presented about SLEEK include: Enables knock-in editing efficiencies of over 90% in relevant cell types, without impacting long-term viability or expansion.Permits constitutive and robust expression in iPSC-derived cell types where transgene promoter silencing has been a major challenge during the di...