David Porter, MD, on Progress With Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration in Cell Therapy for Autoimmune Disease
The director of cell therapy and transplant at Penn Medicine discussed progress made and experienced gained for the field of cell therapy for autoimmune disease in 2024.
This is the second part of an interview with David Porter, MD. For the first part, click here.
“I will say it's been tremendously rewarding at my institution—at University of Pennsylvania—that we've been able to put together a cross disciplinary group with expertise in all these areas who have worked beautifully together. I think that's going to be critical to the success of this field.”
As chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy has made headway into the realm of clinical trials for autoimmune disease, many doctors and other stakeholders in the field are beginning to think about the practical considerations needed for effectively implementing these new therapies. Indeed, even in early clinical trials, a new need for cross-disciplinary collaboration has become clear. As it currently stands, most doctors and other healthcare professionals who have experience working with CAR-T work in oncology, specifically with hematologic malignancies, where CAR-T was first explored and the only discipline in which CAR-T is now a staple of standard of care treatment. These practitioners are experts on administration of CAR-T and management of the unique risks for toxicities that come with the advanced therapeutic. On the other hand, doctors and other healthcare professionals who have expertise in treating autoimmune disease, tend to have comparatively little experience in dealing with CAR-T. As such, when it comes to the clinical application of CAR-T in autoimmune disease, the need for collaboration between these 2 groups—CAR-T experts and disease area experts—has become apparent.
As part of a larger discussion on the learnings from 2024 in cell therapy for autoimmune disease, CGTLive® asked David Porter, MD, the director of cell therapy and transplant at Penn Medicine, about the progress that has been made in fostering collaboration in the field. Porter spoke about the substantial collaboration that has been facilitated at his own institution, and noted that 2024 helped show that such collaboration is possible. Porter also summed up his main message regarding the current state of the field in general, and emphasized that it is an exciting time, but that a lot still remains to be learned regarding cell therapy in autoimmune disease.
