Date: March 9, 2015 By:
Enumeral Biomedical Holdings, Inc. (OTCQB:ENUM) today announced that the company signed an agreement with the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University as part of Enumeral’s Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract with the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Enumeral is developing an advanced, automated prototype system for human tissue immuno-oncology profiling, which will be deployed in the laboratory of Douglas S. Kwon, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Ragon Institute. Enumeral recently announced an agreement to place the system with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
“We believe that an automated profiling system will take significant steps toward streamlining our processes, increasing throughput and, importantly, allowing us to interrogate the human immune microenvironment at the cellular level,” said Dr. Kwon.
Dr. Kwon’s research focuses on the immunology of mucosal surfaces and tissues, which are home to between 60 and 90 percent of the body’s lymphocytes, which are primary disease-fighting white blood cells. Studying these immunological compartments in human patients relies on “small volume” clinical specimens such as core biopsy, which often contain limited numbers of cells and can be challenging to analyze with conventional technologies.
“We are excited to expand our relationship into a formal collaboration with Dr. Kwon, given his expertise in human mucosal immunology as well as his lab’s familiarity with our platform through his work with our scientific founder at MIT,” said Arthur H. Tinkelenberg, Ph.D., President and CEO of Enumeral. “This collaboration with the Ragon Institute may broadly impact our understanding of the fundamental biology of the human mucosal immune microenvironment, which in turn could impact the diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases, inflammatory diseases and cancers.”
Enumeral’s collaboration with the Ragon Institute is supported by a Phase II SBIR contract from the NCI for $999,967 over two years. The NCI is funding the entirety of the program, which complements Enumeral’s other internal research and development efforts. Enumeral generated proof of concept in this area under a Phase I contract in 2012 and 2013.
Their findings, to be published in Cell next month, reveal how the virus manipulates immune system processes to avoid destruction by natural killer (NK) cells, a type of white blood cell that is crucial for fighting viral infections.
The lab of the Ragon Institute faculty member Hernandez Moura Silva, PhD, recently published a review in Science Immunology regarding resident tissue macrophages (RTMs), shedding light on their multifaceted roles in organ health.
After three years off due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ragon-MIT course HST.434 returned this January to provide 24 students a once in a lifetime learning experience