Rebirthel Co., Ltd. was founded in October, 2019.
Rebirthel aims to realize cell-based therapies against cancer or other immune-related diseases by using universal
T cells that are regenerated from pluripotent stem cells.
The strategy is based on methods developed by myself, Dr. Hiroshi Kawamoto (Kyoto University).

It has been shown to be effective to transfuse genetically engineered T cells that had originally been collected from patients.
However, such “autologous” settings have faced problems: costly, time-consuming, and dependent on the quality of the T cells themselves (from the patients).
To solve these problems, Rebirthel provides “off-the-shelf T cells” that can be universally used with any patients in an allogeneic setting.

Pluripotent stem cells such as iPS (induced pluripotent stem) cells or ES (embryonic stem) cells have the potential to produce various types of tissues/organs.
Rebirthel has already established a method by which potent killer T cells can be produced in vitro from iPS cells.
Using this method, Rebirthel is now developing a strategy where tumor antigen-specific T cells are mass-produced and transfused to patients as off-the-shelf T cells.

Certain types of T cells play the role of commander of immune cells, while other types serve as strong warriors.
Therefore, if we can produce different types of T cells - such as killer T cells, helper T cells, or regulatory T cells - covering a wide range of target antigens, we can provide therapeutic T cells targeting any kind of disease related to the immune system (e.g. cancer, infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, allergies, etc.).

Rebirthel opens the way to a future when patients go to hospital to receive transfusion of T cells to treat their disease.