# Simple and Effective Method for Cell Enrichment and Cell Depletion During Cell Therapy

> **NIH NIH R43** · PROTEIOS TECHNOLOGY, INC. · 2020 · $55,000

## Abstract

Proteios is an emerging startup driven to reduce the rising cost of healthcare. Prescription drug
costs are the fastest rising component and are contributing to the dramatic increase in
healthcare costs. The worldwide focus of pharmacy and biotechnology is now in two areas: 1)
biopharmaceutical development and production and 2) cell therapies. Cell therapies have
demonstrated enormous promise for transforming the treatment of cancer and other debilitating
diseases, and the FDA has already approved their use for the treatment of leukemia and
lymphoma. However, some cell therapies cost over $350,000 per treatment, which has made
these life-saving technologies inaccessible to many patients. The objective of this proposal is to
show feasibility of a simple and effective method for cell enrichment and cell depletion
commonly used during cell therapy.
Our short-term goal for Phase I of the SBIR award is to validate that we can enrich T
lymphocytes as starting material for CAR T cell manufacturing using a novel, antibody-free
isolation platform based on proprietary protein technology and nucleic acid aptamers by
immunoaffinity capture of cells that express the Cluster of Differentiation (CD) marker protein
CD4. The platform will use a silica-binding peptide covalently linked to a nucleic acid aptamer
that recognizes a cell surface protein of interest. The resulting peptide-aptamer chimera will
reversibly bind cells to silica, an abundant, non-toxic, and inexpensive material. Our approach
avoids challenging and costly steps where antibodies or other proteins are covalently modified
to bind to beads or small molecules. Additionally, our approach eliminates commonly used
reagents that cause oxidative damage to cells.
When commercialized, this approach will alleviate some of the concerns with current
technologies - such as high cost, long development times, lack of automation, and complicated,
multistep chemistry. The development of products for cell isolation using the Proteios platform
has the potential to reduce the cost of cell enrichments more than tenfold. Furthermore, this
technology could transform the production process for therapeutic cells to make life-saving cell
therapies available to more individuals.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10045040
- **Project number:** 3R43GM134729-01S1
- **Recipient organization:** PROTEIOS TECHNOLOGY, INC.
- **Principal Investigator:** Bob Snyder
- **Activity code:** R43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $55,000
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2019-09-01 → 2020-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10045040

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10045040, Simple and Effective Method for Cell Enrichment and Cell Depletion During Cell Therapy (3R43GM134729-01S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10045040. Licensed CC0.

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