Dr. Li Zhou new TxCell’s Vice President Cell Engineering

TxCell SA has appointed Li Zhou, PhD, as Vice President, Cell Engineering.

Dr. Zhou brings extensive pharmaceutical experience in antibody engineering and T-cell engineering to strengthen and accelerate the development of TxCell’s ENTrIA CAR-Treg platform, said TxCell.

Dr. Zhou was notably Lab Head, Investigator at the Novartis Biologics Center in Cambridge (Massachusetts, US), from 2009 to 2016. In this role, he led the discovery and engineering activities on Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cells (CAR-T) for cancer immunotherapy, with lead candidates now in clinical trials. He also led the development of next-generation CAR-Ts, including inducible CAR-Ts, which have achieved in vivo proof-of-concept.

As the company stated, Dr. Zhou will lead TxCell’s Cell Engineering team within the Research Department. In particular, he will lead the discovery and engineering activities on Chimeric Antigen Receptor in Treg cells (CAR-Treg) for immunotherapy of severe chronic autoimmune and inflammatory diseases as well as organ transplantation.

“With this key appointment, TxCell is demonstrating its commitment to be at the forefront of cellular immunotherapy,” said François Meyer, Head of Research of TxCell. “Cell engineering significantly broadens the potential therapeutic applications of TxCell’s technology and we have recently intensified the research efforts on our ENTrIA CAR-Treg platform. Li brings a wealth of technical and strategic expertise in T-cell engineering, which will be of great value to TxCell as we develop novel and next-generation Treg-based therapies.”, Meyer added.

“This is a very exciting time to be joining TxCell,” said Dr. Li Zhou, Vice President, Cell Engineering, at TxCell. “TxCell has strong Treg expertise as well as great partnerships with world-leading scientists. What we are doing here with CAR-Tregs to treat autoimmune diseases and transplantation-related disorders is truly unique. Everything is in place to rapidly build a solid cell engineering capacity and deliver on the Company’s goals.”, Dr. Zhou concluded.