Dr Diana Hernandez is Anthony Nolan's director of immune and advanced therapies, and heads our Immunotherapy research group. She applies her expertise to advise our Cell Therapy and Laboratory Services (CT&LS) clients in developing a broad range of cell therapies.
Diana has worked at Anthony Nolan for over seven years, and here shares her experiences and reflections:
How has Anthony Nolan’s CT&LS evolved over the years?
"I first heard about Anthony Nolan providing human material for research while working in biotech, long before coming to work here. At the time it was only umbilical cord blood that was offered. That has been one of the changes that we have brought in over the last five years; the expansion of the service to include not only other cell products, including adult cells, but also associated services and technical advice. This expansion is a key part of our corporate strategy and our commitment to support the development of cell therapy products so that more patients can access the treatment they need."
What does your own research entail?
"In the Immunotherapy group we have two main project lines, both with the aim of improving outcomes from haematopoietic cell transplant (HCT). The first is to understand factors outside of HLA that affect transplant outcomes, including the cellular profile of grafts and characteristics of donors, which may influence patient outcomes. The second is the development of cell therapies derived from umbilical cord blood, including therapies utilising NK cells and MSCs.
"The research experience in my team helps us anticipate what cell therapy developers require from a supplier of starting materials, and keeps us aware of opportunities to make the biggest impact possible in the field of cell and gene therapies."
Reflecting on 50 years of Anthony Nolan, which part of our research stands out to you as a stem cell scientist?
"I think for me one of the unique aspects of Anthony Nolan’s work is the translation of scientific evidence into clinical practice. This is illustrated nicely by work conducted at the Anthony Nolan Research Institute and other institutes, that showed that the use of younger donors led to better outcomes for patients undergoing HCT. This resulted in us, as a registry, recruiting donors as young as 16, and continuously trying to increase the proportion of younger donors in the register.
"This work was possible because of the vision to painstakingly collect samples and data from both patients and donors for many years so that some of these correlations can be established, with sufficient evidence. Sometimes, the most important advances are not made by a sudden eureka moment, but by years of accumulating evidence and data to back up hypotheses."
What is your biggest hope for the next 50 years of research and development in cellular therapies?
"The biggest hope for the next 50 years is to be able to treat every patient with a tailor-made treatment, which would allow their prompt recovery with minimal side effects. At present HCT is a sledgehammer approach to treatment – the graft itself, other than being HLA matched to the patient, is the same for all patients.
"My dream is that in the future, the cells we administer to each patient will be tailored to that patient’s needs – taking into account their disease status, age and other co-morbidities. The transplant will be designed to contain the correct ratio of various cell types, some of which may have been genetically manipulated, to ensure the patient’s underlying disease is cured, and no undesirable complications occur.
"We will go from a graft that feels like a black box, to a bag of pick-and-mix that has the precise combination and number of cells required to ensure the complete recovery of every patient we treat.
"Technically we may not be too far from this, but we still have to overcome high costs of production of these complex medicines, we need to have an educated work force, and a health system fit for the demands of the population of the 21st century and beyond. "
Discover more about Diana’s immunotherapy research and see how you can work with us here.