Spring 2025 Grantee Highlight:
Eric Smith
Eric Smith, MD, PhD
Director of Translation Immune Effector Cell Therapies, Dana- Farber Cancer Institute
The Eric Smith Lab is pursuing linked goals of improving the persistence and expanding the accessibility of genetically modified adoptive cell therapies for cancer. The team is combining genetic and viral engineering strategies to create a point-of-care delivery system capable of generating long-lasting, cancer-killing immune cells in a cell-specific manner.
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy has delivered transformative results in some cancers. This approach involves reprogramming a patient’s immune cells to recognize tumor-specific surface proteins and has shown remarkable clinical responses. However, it remains costly, technologically demanding, and largely limited to major hospitals in highly developed regions. Moreover, many patients relapse due to the eventual disappearance of CAR-modified immune cells.
This project aims to overcome those barriers by developing a safe, off-the-shelf platform that supports sustained immune cell activity without centralized manufacturing. The team hopes to deliver a scalable model for cancer immunotherapy that is both effective and widely available.
