We unexpectedly found that human iNKT cells in normal blood donors displayed on average approximately 44% CD7 negativity. Therefore, we hypothesize that CD7 negative subsets in iNKT cells expressing CD7 CAR can partially avoid fratricide without nuclease-mediated genome editing to delete CD7 and be expanded for adoptive cell therapy of CD7+ malignancies. 

By leveraging our proprietary iNKT cell expansion platform, engineered CD7 CAR iNKT (CD7 CAR-iNKT) cells can be expanded to clinical scale, for at least 100 doses without the need of genome editing and inducing unacceptable levels of fratricide. Our CD7 CAR-modified iNKT cell product offers several differentiated advantages over current CD7 CAR-T cells including off-the-shelf, no need of genome editing, dual targeting for CD1d+ T-ALL, and one batch to treat over 100 patients with multi dosing.