FREEHOLD, N.J. – Feb 14, 2022 – (Avalon GloboCare Corp. (NASDAQ: AVCO), a leading global developer of cell-based technologies and therapeutics, announced today that the Company is expanding its cellular immuno-oncology program with the addition of novel Chimeric Antigen Receptor – Natural Killer (CAR-NK) cell therapies.
NASDAQ Company offers Life Saving Medical Advances; AI & Immunotherapy for Cancer & Immune Related Diseases Including COVID-19: Avalon GloboCare Corp. (NASDAQ: AVCO)
- Clinical-Stage CellTech Developer Dedicated to Immune Effector Cell Therapy and Exosome Technology.
- Introducing Life Saving COVID-19 Diagnostics and Therapeutics.
- New Treatment for Deadly Cytokine Storm in COVID-19 Patients.
- Novel Technology to Efficiently Synthesize & Study Previously Difficult to Work With Drug Targets.
- Technology Will Facilitate Drug Design for Cancer & Immune Diseases.
- Study Published in September 2021 Issue of Journal Membranes.
- Leveraging Avalon’s existing Flash-CARTM technology platform to develop next-generation mRNA-based CAR-NK cellular therapeutics
- Clinical development of CAR-NK cell therapy planned in collaboration with the Company’s clinical partner, Lu Daopei Hospital, as a potential treatment for hematologic malignancies and other unmet medical areas
- Appoints Dongfang Liu, Ph.D., a world-class scientist and expert in CAR-NK technology, to Avalon’s Scientific and Clinical Advisory Board
Natural killer (NK) cells constitute an important component of the immune system. NK cells seek out abnormal cells, including cancerous cells, and destroy them. However, cancer cells are often capable of “masking” themselves to evade attack by NK cells. By adding a “Chimeric Antigen Receptor” (CAR) to a patient’s own or universal-donor NK cells, these engineered CAR-NK cells are designed to “unmask,” recognize and destroy a patient’s specific tumor surface targets.
Avalon is leveraging its mRNA-based FLASH-CAR™ platform to develop autologous and universal (“off-the-shelf”) CAR-NK technology and cellular therapies for the potential treatment of hematologic malignancies and solid tumors. Avalon plans to expand its clinical program in collaboration with its major clinical trial partner, the Lu Daopei Hospital.
The new CAR-NK therapies in development are intended to build upon and complement AVA-011, Avalon’s lead CAR-T candidate, part of the Company’s proprietary mRNA-based FLASH-CAR™ platform. AVA-011 is currently at the IND-enabling, process development stage, which is expected to produce clinical-grade CAR-T cells for an upcoming clinical trial in patients with hematological malignancies. The platform uses next generation CAR technology to modify patients’ T or universal-donor NK cells using a ribonucleic acid (RNA)-based platform rather than a viral vector, allowing for more rapid and lower-cost bio-manufacturing of the cell therapy products.
To further strengthen its CAR-NK development capabilities, Avalon has appointed Dr. Dongfang Liu to its Scientific and Clinical Advisory Board. Dr. Liu is currently an Associate Professor and Director of Immunoassay Development Program at the Department of Pathology, Immunology and Laboratory Medicine at The Rutgers University New Jersey Medical School. Dr. Liu’s research expertise is focused on the immunobiology of NK and CAR-NK, with more than 20 years of experience in NK cell research. Dr. Liu is a prolific author in top-tier journals including Nature Immunology, Immunity, Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, JACI, and PNAS. Dr. Liu also serves on the editorial boards of several scientific journals and as a reviewer for scientific journals and grant agencies.
“CAR-NK represents a powerful and innovative tool in the fight against cancer, and we believe our mRNA-based FLASH-CAR™ platform will enable us to develop best-in-class therapies,” said David Jin, M.D., Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Avalon GloboCare. “We are especially pleased to welcome Dr. Dongfang Liu to our Scientific and Clinical Advisory Board. Dr. Liu will become an invaluable part of the team in expanding and supporting Avalon’s pipeline. We also appreciate the support of our world-class clinical partners, including the researchers and clinicians at the prestigious Lu Daopei Hospital, as we develop our cellular immuno-oncology programs for hematologic malignancies as well as other unmet medical needs,” added Dr. Jin.
Avalon GloboCare Corp. (NASDAQ: AVCO) is a clinical-stage, vertically integrated, leading CellTech bio-developer dedicated to advancing and empowering innovative, transformative immune effector cell therapy, exosome technology, as well as COVID-19 related diagnostics and therapeutics. AVCO also provides strategic advisory and outsourcing services to facilitate and enhance its clients’ growth and development, as well as competitiveness in healthcare and CellTech industry markets. Through its subsidiary structure with unique integration of verticals from innovative R&D to automated bioproduction and accelerated clinical development, AVCO is establishing a leading role in the fields of cellular immunotherapy (including CAR-T/NK), exosome technology (ACTEX™), and regenerative therapeutics.
- Advanced Filtration Tech Could Help Stop Life-Threatening Cytokine Storm in COVID-19 Patients
Cytokine storm has made frequent appearances in the news lately as a life-threatening complication in patients suffering from COVID-19. The condition is an inflammatory syndrome triggered by hyperactivation of immune cells that can significantly impact the patient’s chances of making a full recovery or surviving the infection at all.
Fortunately, AVCO has already been developing a range of therapies that have the potential to help target cytokine storm and other risk factors that make the widespread virus so difficult to get under control.
What Is Cytokine Storm?
The immune system uses cytokines to perform a variety of important tasks from clotting blood to triggering antibody production. When overworked — as can happen when the body is fighting off an aggressive, difficult disease like COVID-19 or is being treated with therapies designed to activate an immune response — that same immune system can end up producing too many cytokines. When the ones that trigger an inflammatory response are produced in excess, the cytokines trigger severe inflammatory symptoms, damage healthy tissue, and can even cause multiple organs to fail, leading to death.
AVCO AVA-Trap™ Already Targets Cytokine Storm
Because cytokine storm is a common risk factor in many cancer therapies, the oncology-focused AVCO was already hard at work on a way to calm down cytokine storms. The AVCO AVA-Trap™ therapeutic program was developed to target this potentially fatal complication. By using cytokine receptor proteins, the AVA-Trap™ program could dampen the release of cytokine, essentially filtering out the excess cytokines.
When COVID-19 started to spread through populations around the globe in 2020, doctors soon realized that the virus could induce a cytokine storm and that, when it did, the chances of that patient surviving grew slim. AVCO moved quickly to file and expanded patent for the proprietary filtration technology so it could be used to help COVID patients increase their chances of recovering from the disease.
AVCO Launches Full-Scale Plan to Tackle COVID-19 Pandemic
In addition to leveraging its existing AVA-Trap™ program to help combat cytokine storm and improve patient outcomes, AVCO also began working on a slate of other tools doctors can use to keep the evolving virus at bay.
In partnership with Adial Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: ADIL), AVCO is distributing a rapid diagnostics test that can detect multiple COVID antibodies with between 92.9% and 98.6% accuracy in just 10 minutes. Using the AVCO existing global distribution network, the 2 companies are able to make this rapid and highly accurate test available to healthcare providers worldwide.
In another partnership with Austria’s University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), AVCO is working on an intranasal spray vaccine for COVID-19. Based on innovative S-layer technology that creates uniform, repetitive protein structures, the vaccine could become a highly effective formula in a format that people could self-administer — reducing the burden on healthcare providers to individually vaccinate the world’s population and reducing barriers to access for people with mobility challenges or who live too far from the nearest vaccine administration site.
Finally, AVCO began practical testing for its allogeneic MSC-based cellular therapy (ACETEX™), which could treat the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and multisystem inflammatory syndrome that can also come with severe cases of COVID-19 infection and, like cytokine storm, significantly increase the risk of mortality. ARDS alone has been the cause of death in 70% of fatal COVID-19 cases where an aggressive inflammatory response happens.
ACETEX™ uses mesenchymal stromal cells taken from bone marrow, fat tissue, or other tissue types and adapts them to help moderate the body’s immune system response. Because cytokine storm, ARDS, and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in COVID-19 patients are all triggered by a hyperactive immune response, the potential ACETEX™ has for better regulating the immune response could offer a reliable treatment option to stop these complications in their tracks and prevent them from progressing to a fatal stage.
- AVCO and University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) Co-develop Innovative In-Silico Technology, Enabling the Design and Synthesis of Novel Cell Membrane Receptor Targets for Cancer and Immune-Related Diseases
On October 7th AVCO announced co-development of a novel, cell-free, in-silico system to facilitate the Company’s drug development efforts, together with the Institute for Synthetic Bioarchitectures at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna, Austria. A study of the new technology was featured in the September 2021 issue of Membranes, an international, peer-reviewed journal.
The new AVCO technology reveals that difficult-to-study cell membrane proteins can be efficiently expressed in a cell-free system, allowing for their evaluation as potentially druggable targets. The technology expands Avalon’s ability to design and produce novel membrane proteins—including receptors found on the surface of immune cells and cancer cells that are important for cell signaling and diseases such as cancer—providing Avalon an efficient tool to screen and optimize potential therapeutic targets.
Proteins function within cells and are also present on cell surfaces, embedded within the cell’s outer membrane. These membrane proteins include cell surface receptors that function in cell signaling and regulation of communication with other cells and tissues. These molecules are important drug targets and include receptors on immune cells such as T-cells for the development of cellular immunotherapies.
The researchers used computer-based models, developed at the University of Vienna, to identify factors that optimize the expression of membrane proteins in a cell-free, in-silico system, resulting in high protein yield. The AVCO study demonstrated the success of this method by showing the ability to manipulate and express a drug target membrane protein, a human voltage-dependent anion channel, at high yield.
The use of this novel AVCO technology can improve knowledge about receptors and other membrane proteins to better understand the biology of drug targets and to develop novel therapies, including immunotherapies for cancer.
The new technology is a direct result of a collaboration between AVCO and researchers at BOKU, Vienna, the University of Vienna, the Science for Life Laboratory within the Division of Nanobiotechnology at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden and the Department of Biochemistry at the King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
For more information on Avalon GloboCare Corp. (NASDAQ: AVCO) visit: http://www.avalon-globocare.com
DISCLAIMER:
CAP/FrontPageStocks/CorporateAds.com (CA) is a third-party publisher and news dissemination service provider. CAP/FPS/CA is NOT affiliated in any manner with any company mentioned herein. CAP/FPS/CA is a news dissemination solutions provider and is NOT a registered broker/dealer/analyst/adviser, holds no investment licenses and may NOT sell, offer to sell or offer to buy any security. CAP/FPS/CA’s market updates, news alerts and corporate profiles are NOT a solicitation or recommendation to buy, sell or hold securities. The material in this release is intended to be strictly informational and is NEVER to be construed or interpreted as research material. All readers are strongly urged to perform research and due diligence on their own and consult a licensed financial professional before considering any level of investing in stocks. All material included herein is republished content and details which were previously disseminated by the companies mentioned in this release or opinion of the writer. CAP/FPS/ CA is not liable for any investment decisions by its readers or subscribers. Investors are cautioned that they may lose all or a portion of their investment when investing in stocks. CAP/FPS/CA has been compensated $500 by a third party for dissemination of this article.
Disclaimer/Safe Harbor:
These news releases and postings may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Litigation Reform Act. The statements reflect the Company’s current views with respect to future events that involve risks and uncertainties. Among others, these risks include the expectation that any of the companies mentioned herein will achieve significant sales, the failure to meet schedule or performance requirements of the companies’ contracts, the companies’ liquidity position, the companies’ ability to obtain new contracts, the emergence of competitors with greater financial resources and the impact of competitive pricing. In the light of these uncertainties, the forward-looking events referred to in this release might not occur.
Media Contact
Company Name: Avalon GloboCare Corp
Contact Person: David K. Jin, President & CEO
Email: Send Email
Phone: (732) 780-4400
Address:4400 ROUTE 9 SOUTH SUITE 3100
City: Freehold
State: New Jersey, 07728
Country: United States
Website: http://www.avalon-globocare.com/
