SAN DIEGO—Recent preclinical work yielded encouraging results for Fate Therapeutics Inc. with regard to ToleraCyte, its programmed CD34+ immuno-regulatory cell product candidate for autoimmune diseases. ToleraCyte is designed to optimize the ability of CD34+ cells to effectively traffic to sites of inflammation and express potent T cell regulatory factors. Company scientists, along with collaborators from Boston Children’s Hospital, showed that a single administration of programmed cells significantly delayed the onset of type 1 diabetes in non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice; the median time to onset was not reached by day 140, compared to untreated mice (median time to onset = day 115). In in-vivo studies of hyperglycemic NOD mice mimicking type 1 diabetes, a single administration engendered the durable correction of disease compared to vehicle-treated cells. When tested in a humanized model of type 1 diabetes, programmed CD34+ cells demonstrated enhanced trafficking to the pancreas and regulation of T cell activation.