Inside Roswell Park’s big bet on cell therapy and what that means for cancer care

Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in recent years has made major moves in its bid to become a leader in cellular therapy.

There was the big executive hire in September 2021 when Dr. Renier Brentjens, a cell therapy pioneer who was raised in Buffalo, joined Roswell Park as its deputy director after a long tenure at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, consistently ranked as the country’s second-best cancer hospital.

Then, Brentjens and Roswell Park assembled what leaders refer to as an “all-star team” of experts in cell therapy, a rapidly evolving field that uses living cells – which are sometimes re-engineered or genetically modified in a clean room – to battle cancer.

And now, Roswell Park is deep into an expansion of its cell and gene therapy research and manufacturing capabilities, a project that excites state politicians as they hope to bolster New York’s place in the life sciences sector by positioning the Buffalo cancer center as the upstate hub for cell and gene therapy.

Roswell Park, which already has six specialized and highly regulated clean rooms to do this kind of science, is revamping an entire floor in its Cancer Cell Center – the tall brown building near where Carlton and Ellicott streets intersect – to add another 14 clean rooms.

With 20 clean rooms operating by early 2025, cancer center officials believe the Roswell Park GMP Engineering & Cell Manufacturing Facility will be the largest academic GMP – Good Manufacturing Practice – facility for cell therapy in the country.

What businesses are doing…