Welcome to the Cellular Therapy Facility: precision medicine in the heart of SickKids

On the 8th floor of The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), tucked in between the Haematology/Oncology Day Hospital and inpatient ward, is a unique space: one of only a handful across Canada. Small and unassuming in appearance, the space packs a punch – facilitating some of the most specialized treatments in the country.  

Welcome to the Cellular Therapy Facility at SickKids.  

The Cellular Therapy Facility specializes in processing and delivering cellular therapy products for patients. Cell-based therapies are a type of precision medicine that use living cells, such as immune cells or hematopoietic stem cells, to treat complex, often life threatening, medical conditions that may not respond to conventional therapies.

Because of the distinctive facilities, equipment and expertise required to produce, store, and deliver living cells safely and effectively, cellular therapies are not widely available or accessible in Canada for children.

The Cellular Therapy Facility at SickKids helps facilitate the safe, efficient delivery of cell-based products to patients, while also advancing research, collaboration and equitable access to individualized therapies. 

“Building a facility like this in our hospital allows us to build up the resources, infrastructure and expertise over time to eventually deliver cellular therapies faster and in a more cost-effective way,” says Karin Hermans, Senior Manager of the Cellular Therapy Facility.

Investing in the future 

Many cellular therapies show real promise for patients with a challenging diagnosis, particularly for, but not limited to, patients with hematopoietic (blood) or immunologic (affecting the immune system) conditions.  

An example of a cellular therapy that has been remarkably effective for treating people with certain types of cancer is Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy. CAR T-cell therapy is a form of immunotherapy that modifies a patient's own immune cells to recognize and attack cancer cells.  

"Being able to deliver CAR-T therapy has been transformative in our progress in treating cancer,” says Dr. Jim Whitlock, Division Head of Haematology and Oncology, Director of the Garron Family Cancer Centre at SickKids, and Senior Associate Scientist in the Translational Medicine program. “Harnessing a child’s own immune cells to treat their cancer gives them a meaningful chance to achieve long-term remission, especially for children who have exhausted other options.” 

Delivering and infusing CAR T-cell therapy safely is no easy feat. Cells typically go through a process where they are extracted, frozen, transported to an external specialized facility (usually outside of the country), modified to fight the cancer, transported back to the hospital, where they are thawed just before being infused into the patient. The cells must be infused within 30 minutes of being thawed to remain viable, creating a time crunch for the care team delivering it.

The delicate process these cells go through can be costly, create significant logistical challenges and can take weeks at a time given the distance they need to travel. 

The Cellular Therapy Facility at SickKids is one of a small handful in Canada that can manufacture clinical-grade cell products, without relying on external providers or compromising on quality or safety.

“Having such a facility on site allows us to deliver cutting-edge treatment more efficiently and effectively, and it opens up new possibilities for developing innovative therapies in the future," says Dr. Joerg Krueger, Medical Director of the Cellular Therapy Facility. 

A hub of innovation and collaboration focused on paediatric care 

Oftentimes in the health-care system, precision therapies are developed through research and discovery focused on the adult population, but children are not just small adults. They have different types of cancers, different immune systems, and different responses to treatments.  

The Cellular Therapy Facility creates opportunities for new collaboration between clinical and research teams to develop better treatment and protocols specifically for kids.   

“This kind of specialized space and expertise is critically important as we aim to expand the scope and availability of individualized therapies for children, especially for rare disease and hard-to-treat cancers,” says Dr. David Malkin, Co-Lead of Precision Child Health, Director of the Cancer Genetics Program and Senior Scientist in the Genetics and Genome Biology program.  “Together we can look to a future where all treatment is tailor-made to each child.”