These so-called soluble Notch agonists can be broadly applied to optimize clinical T-cell production and advance immunotherapy development.

Notch signaling is central to many cellular differentiation processes and is essential in transforming human immune cells into T-cells that target viruses and tumors. But activating Notch signaling in the laboratory has posed a challenge.

To address this, researchers in the lab of George Daley, Dean of Harvard Medical School and Co-Founder of the Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, and their collaborators worked to engineer a soluble Notch agonist to promote T-cell production in liquid suspension culture rather than on a flat “2D” surface.