New immunotherapy research
New research from our Immunotherapy group marks an important step forward in pioneering cell therapies that can treat blood cancer.
Dr Diana Hernandez, who leads the group and is our director of immune and advanced therapies, said: “These findings are the result of years of hard work from my team, marking a fundamental advance in our approach to the manufacture of novel cell therapies. Cell therapies like these could introduce major shifts in how we treat blood cancers, alongside stem cell transplants.”
Natural killers: an evolving cancer treatment
The key to Dr Hernandez’s research is natural killer cells.
Natural killer (NK) cells are an important type of immune cell which respond quickly to infections in the body. They also play an important role in defending our bodies from cancer, by scanning for and killing any cells with cancer markers.
Dr Hernandez’s research looks at how we can exploit this to create new cell-based treatments for people with blood cancer.
Many researchers are seeking ways of using NK cells in new therapies, due to their natural cancer-targeting abilities. Our Immunotherapy group is one of these research teams, focusing on collecting NK cells from donated umbilical cord blood – usually a waste product from birth, but rich in NK cells and blood stem cells.
This is one of the benefits of NK cells – they can be collected from cord blood, which is available to researchers thanks to the thousands of people who have donated their cord blood to public banks like the one managed by Anthony Nolan.
NK cells collected from cord blood are already being used to treat cancer, and our researchers are exploring ways to use NK cells to treat relapse after a stem cell transplant. But one big hurdle is that because NK cells come from people, they are all slightly different. Some units of cord blood may contain NK cells that grow quickly in the lab and be highly active, whereas others may grow slowly or not be as effective at fighting cancer.
The aim of this project was to figure out how to identify the very best NK cells from donated cord blood, and then how to more effectively grow these cells in the lab to produce enough to be used as a cell therapy in patients.
Results from our first study: from drawing board to potential treatment
Our study showed that NK cells that were quickly collected from umbilical cord blood (i.e. within a day) grew around twice as fast in the lab compared to those that were collected after a longer delay. In cell biology, fresher cells are usually considered more useful as they can get more ‘stressed’ the longer they are outside the body.
Interestingly, our researchers also showed that freezing NK cells once they’d been collected also meant they grew several times faster once they were eventually thawed in the lab – a promising finding as it would make the logistics of preparing NK cell therapies quite a bit easier, as scientists could freeze NK cells from a number of donors and give them more time to select the ideal cells.
Finally, the team found that cord blood collected from caesarean sections as opposed to vaginal deliveries contained NK cells that grew faster in the lab. We still have to discover why this is the case, but it’s another useful way of selecting NK cells that have the most therapeutic potential.
Overall, this helps us paint a picture of the best ways to select NK cells for the development of cell therapies, potentially helping us create unique cellular therapies for blood cancer patients.
What’s next in our NK cell research
These findings mark a huge step forward in our understanding of NK cells collected from cord blood, and pave the way for future cell therapies that make the most of the anti-cancer potential of NK cells.
“One area we’re also researching is how we might be able to genetically engineer NK cells to boost their cancer-fighting capacity – it’s preliminary work but hugely exciting” says Dr Diana Hernandez, our director of immune and advanced therapies.
“Another important thing that makes us especially interested in NK cells is that they do not need to be genetically matched to patients – meaning they could one day become an ‘off the shelf’ therapy. This could be particularly impactful for patients who don’t have access to a genetically matched donor for a stem cell transplant.”
Patients from minority ethnic backgrounds are less likely to have a matching donor on the register, so NK cells could be a way to help address this inequity in stem cell transplants.
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Full citation
Kennedy MG, Patterson W, Cox ST, Wynn L, Stock da Cunha C, O'Dwyer M, Danby R, Hernandez D. Umbilical cord blood natural killer cells for adoptive immunotherapy: identifying optimal starting material and processing parameters. Front Immunol. 2026 Jan 13;16:1734453. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1734453. PMID: 41607784; PMCID: PMC12835214.