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Lentigen Corporation has signed a second collaborative research agreement (CRA) with the University of Pennsylvania , enabling Lentigen to work with Carl H. June M.D., Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine of the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine , in the development of Lentigen's lentiviral vector for clinical gene therapy research.

Currently the Director of Translational Research at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania , and Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Dr. June is world renowned for his work in T-cell biology and testing novel forms of immunotherapy as treatments for cancer and chronic infections.

The strategy of Dr. June’s team in developing one or more pharmaceutical agents is based on enhancing the immune system's ability to recognize and eliminate tumor cells – a strategy including "adoptive immunotherapy" which uses a patient's own white blood cells to attack cancer cells.

Dr. June’s Program in Translational Research, resulted in more than 10 phase I trials involving biologic and cellular therapies for cancer and chronic infections, is also evaluating another approach called customized vaccination, which uses the patient's own tumor tissue to create an individually customized vaccine.

The financial terms of the collaboration were not disclosed.

Read the Lentigen press release (a pdf file).