Tessera Therapeutics Awarded up to $41.3 Million from ARPA-H to Advance In Vivo CAR-T Therapies
-
Award will support development of a single dose in vivo chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapy to retrain immune cells directly within the body to fight cancer and autoimmune diseases using Tessera’s Gene WritingTM and delivery platforms
SOMERVILLE, Mass, Oct. 08, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tessera Therapeutics, a biotechnology company pioneering a new approach to genome engineering through the development of its Gene Writing and delivery platforms, announced today it has been awarded up to $41.3 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) as part of its Engineering of Immune Cells Inside the Body (EMBODY) program. EMBODY is led by ARPA-H Program Manager Daria Fedyukina, Ph.D. The award will support the development of Tessera’s in vivo CAR-T therapy efforts, which leverages its Gene Writing and proprietary lipid nanoparticle (LNP)-based delivery platforms to engineer functional CAR-T cells directly within the body.
Tessera is developing Gene WritersTM, which are designed to precisely and durably integrate therapeutic instructions into the genome, enabling the incorporation of CAR sequences into T cells using non-viral delivery. Through a single intravenous administration of Gene Writer formulated in a targeted LNP, Tessera aims to generate potent, disease-specific CAR-T cells directly in the body, eliminating the need for ex vivo cell manipulation, viral vectors, and toxic lymphodepletion.
“We are honored to receive this support from ARPA-H to develop the next generation of immunotherapies,” said Michael Holmes, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Tessera Therapeutics. “This work builds on the progress we’ve made using our Gene Writing and delivery platforms to engineer T cells in vivo and has the potential to dramatically improve the accessibility, safety, and scalability of currently available CAR-T therapies.”
Under the EMBODY program at ARPA-H, Tessera will develop in vivo CAR-T therapies for therapeutic applications in oncology or autoimmune disease. The programs will leverage targeted LNPs designed to enable T cell specific delivery with high efficiency. In preclinical studies, Tessera’s targeted LNPs demonstrated robust delivery to T cells and efficient CAR transgene integration, supporting the potential for single dose, curative therapies. This award builds on Tessera’s continued momentum across its pipeline, including recent advances in in vivo genome engineering for liver, hematopoietic stem cell, and T cell directed therapies.
About Tessera Therapeutics
Tessera Therapeutics is pioneering a new approach to genome engineering through the development of its Gene Writing™ and delivery platforms, with the aim to unlock broad new therapeutic frontiers. Our Gene Writing platform is designed to write therapeutic messages into the genome by efficiently changing single or multiple DNA base pairs, precisely correcting insertions or deletions, or adding exon-length sequences and whole genes. Our proprietary lipid nanoparticle delivery platform is designed to enable the in vivo delivery of RNA to targeted cell types. We believe our Gene Writing and delivery platforms will enable transformative genetic medicines to not only cure diseases that arise from errors in a single gene, but also modify inherited risk factors for common diseases and create engineered cells to treat cancer and potentially autoimmune and other diseases. Tessera Therapeutics was founded in 2018 by Flagship Pioneering, a life sciences innovation enterprise that conceives, creates, resources, and develops first-in-category bioplatform companies to transform human health and sustainability.
For more information about Tessera, please visit www.tesseratherapeutics.com.
This research was funded, in part, by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Government.
Contact
Jonathan Pappas, PhD
LifeSci Communications, LLC
jpappas@lifescicomms.com
Legal Disclaimer:
EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
