About the webinar:
Humanized Immune System (HIS) models are important for preclinical immuno-oncology, autoimmune, and infectious disease research, especially as biologics, vaccines, and cell/gene therapies become more complex. Traditional HIS models using CD34+ cells or PBMCs lack the T and B cell function needed for robust adaptive immune responses. BLT HIS models addressed this using human thymus tissue but were difficult to adopt due to technical challenges and ethical concerns.
The NeoThy hIL-6 huNOG model combines human CD34+ cells, neonatal thymus tissue, and human cytokine support to enable adaptive immune responses without the limitations of BLT models. This webinar will introduce the model, review its characteristics, and present proof-of-concept immunogenicity data.
Assessing the immunogenicity of human therapeutics in vivo remains challenging because non-human models recognize these therapies as foreign. Existing in vitro and in silico approaches are limited, creating a need for more predictive in vivo systems. We will show that the NeoThy hIL-6 huNOG model generates donor-specific neutralizing antibody responses to infliximab, demonstrating functional adaptive immunity, while matched CD34+ control models did not.
Additional applications discussed will include vaccine response, tumor studies, thymopoiesis, tumor growth kinetics, PD-L1-mediated immune-related adverse effects (iRAEs), and mRNA vaccine-induced T cell responses measured by single-cell transcriptomics.
Overall, the webinar highlights how inclusion of a human thymus improves T cell education and B cell interaction, enabling more functional human adaptive immune responses than CD34+-only models. It will also provide practical guidance on the model’s strengths, limitations, and research applications.
