Fraunhofer Attract project "IMMUNITY"

Immune cells and immune cell preparations play an increasingly important role in modern medicine. Biomedical researchers are exploring alternative ways of obtaining such immune cells of human origin. Prof. Lachmann and his team have developed a new method laying a foundation for producing them in consistent quality and on large scale.

The group uses a standardized process to produce human immune cells from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). In special vessels, the iPSCs are stimulated in a solution in such a way that they continuously propagate cells like for example macrophages. As the design is in 3D, instead of the previous 2D design at the bottom of a petri dish, the researchers are able to produce significantly larger quantities of the designer immune cells and the scale can be expanded as required. The method has high potential for investigating and evaluating drug candidates as it allows to test their efficacy and safety directly in human target structures without having to use animal experiments, which are effectively the long way round.

The Fraunhofer Attract project aims to advance the development and validation of this system. A further focus is to establish cell-based potency assays – test systems to measure the efficacy or safety of biological and bioengineered drugs. The Attract group has a budget of 2.5 million euros over five years for their research.