Over a decade ago, a dis­as­trous tri­al killed re­search on a po­ten­tial im­munother­a­py. Can a Re­gen­eron bis­pe­cif­ic re­vive it?

In 2006, a Ger­man biotech de­vel­oped what they called a “su­per­ag­o­nist” for CD28, a pock­et on T cells that in the­o­ry could be used to stim­u­late their abil­i­ty to fight can­cer. They put it in 6 healthy vol­un­teers, each of whom be­came crit­i­cal­ly ill with­in hours as their im­mune sys­tem went hay­wire. Af­ter that, com­pa­nies backed off.

“There’s been cau­tion that you would do any­thing to stim­u­late CD28 in a non-spe­cif­ic man­ner in hu­mans,” ex­plained Stephen Schoen­berg­er, a can­cer im­mu­nol­o­gist at the La Jol­la In­sti­tute for Im­munol­o­gy.

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