Inside University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center lab where medical miracles are made

It's no secret we live in a medical mecca of sorts. People come to Northeast Ohio from all over the world to access our facilities.

But now, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center has opened a rare type of laboratory not found in many places. It's a lab that may provide the next big breakthrough in cancer research and bring some of the brightest minds to Northeast Ohio.

It’s called the Wesley Center for Immunotherapy at the UH Seidman Cancer Center. It made the existing lab three times bigger and 3News got an exclusive tour of the high tech parts before the scientists moved in to work.

For decades, UH Seidman Cancer Center has led the way in cutting-edge immunotherapy research and has been doing cellular therapy trials since 1995. The existing lab opened in 2005 as part of the Case Western Reserve National Center for Regenerative Medicine consortium, which includes UH.

Since then, the Cellular Therapy Lab has manufactured 439 cellular products for UH and other hospitals in the region and nationally, treating 134 patients with immunotherapy clinical trials.

UH currently has many clinical trials open at the cell therapy facility which generates CAR T, NK cell and other cell-based therapies.

“There are very few institutions around the country that have the setup as we do here at UH Seidman Cancer Center, so we are really well placed to contribute to this groundbreaking novel research,” said Koen van Besien, MD, PhD, UH Seidman Cancer Center Hematology Chief and Director of Wesley Center for Immunotherapy.

They've already started. UH researchers invented a faster way to deliver what's called CAR T-cell cancer therapy for lymphoma, where the patient’s own cells attack their cancer, with a little help.

Immune system T-cells are collected from the patient's blood and brought into the lab to be re-engineered to fight the patient's specific cancer.

This process typically takes about a month and unfortunately many patients don't have time to wait.

“We have brought that production time down to about a day or two, plus the time to required to run the tests to release the cells back to the patient takes us down to less than a week to get those cells ready,” Dr. van Besien said.

The clinical trial is underway, and if all goes well, this method may save countless lives. But that's just one potential breakthrough. The lab itself may draw the nation's best minds

Monica Robins reports: https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/hea...