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By tweaking the chimeric antigen receptor or CAR engineered into T cells to treat patients’ lymphoma, scientists have avoided side effects common to the immunotherapy, commonly known as CAR T-cell therapy. Of 25 patients treated in a small clinical trial, none developed neurotoxicity or cytokine release syndrome, and among 11 patients who received a dose typical of a CAR T therapy on the market, six went into remission and another two into partial remission.
“We’ve made a new CAR molecule that’s just as efficient at killing cancer cells, but it works more slowly and with less toxicity,” Si-Yi Chen, a professor at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California who lead the study, says in a press release. “Toxicities are currently the biggest barrier to the use of CAR T-cell therapy. My hope is that this safer version of CAR T-cell ...
