Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T therapy is a cancer immunotherapy that relies on CARs, hybrid molecules of T cell receptors and antibodies. Scientists engineer patient-derived T cells to express CARs that kill cancer cells displaying molecules targeted by the CAR antibody domain. Although the FDA has approved CAR T therapy for B cell cancer treatment, it has been difficult for researchers to expand this therapeutic approach to other hematological malignancies. In T cell cancers such as T cell lymphoblastic leukemia (TLL), this challenge arises from fratricide, CAR T cell self-destruction.1–3
CAR T cells often share the same receptors as malignant T cells, which leads to fratricide. Paulina Velasquez, a clinician researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, aims to bypass fratricide to target T cell malignancies with CAR T therapy. “We really wanted to develop a therapy for TLL, and it's always been something of interest because…how are you going ...
