Insights from CTTACC: immune system reset by cellular therapies for chronic illness after trauma, infection, and burn

Kenneth Bertram; Charles Cox; Hasan Alam; Clifford Lowell; Joseph Cuschieri; Biju Parekkadan; Shibani Pati

doi:10.1016/j.jcyt.2024.02.013

Insights from CTTACC: immune system reset by cellular therapies for chronic illness after trauma, infection, and burn

Cytotherapy. 2024 Feb 24:S1465-3249(24)00059-8. doi: 10.1016/j.jcyt.2024.02.013. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Kenneth Bertram¹, Charles Cox², Hasan Alam³, Clifford Lowell⁴, Joseph Cuschieri⁵, Biju Parekkadan⁶, Shibani Pati⁷

Affiliations

¹ Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA. Electronic address: kabertra@wakehealth.edu.
² Department of Pediatric Surgery, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.
³ Department of Surgery, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
⁴ Department of Laboratory Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.
⁵ Department of Surgery, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.
⁶ Department of Biomedical Engineering, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA.
⁷ Department of Laboratory Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA; Department of Surgery, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.

PMID: 38506768
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcyt.2024.02.013

Abstract

Background aims: In this paper, we present a review of several selected talks presented at the CTTACC conference (Cellular Therapies in Trauma and Critical Care) held in Scottsdale, AZ in May 2023. This conference review highlights the potential for cellular therapies to "reset" the dysregulated immune response and restore physiologic functions to normal. Improvements in medical care systems and technology have increasingly saved lives after major traumatic events. However, many of these patients have complicated post-traumatic sequelae, ranging from short-term multi-organ failure to chronic critical illness.

Methods/results: Patients with chronic critical illness have been found to have dysregulated immune responses. These abnormal and harmful immune responses persist for years after the initial insult and can potentially be mitigated by treatment with cellular therapies.

Conclusions: The sessions emphasized the need for more research and clinical trials with cellular therapies for the treatment of a multitude of chronic illnesses: post-trauma, radiation injury, COVID-19, burns, traumatic brain injury (TBI) and other chronic infections.

Keywords: cell therapy; chronic critical illness; immunomodulation; trauma.