The second-ever leukemia patient to receive an infusion of CAR T cells—which had been harvested from his blood and modified to produce receptors that recognize cancer cells—is still cancer free more than 10 years later. Tumor-fighting immune cells are still circulating in his body, according to a study published yesterday (February 2) in Nature. The first patient to receive the treatment also went into remission and stayed cancer-free until the time of his death in January 2021, when he passed away from COVID-19.
“We can now conclude that CAR T cells can actually cure patients with leukemia,” study coauthor Carl June, a cancer immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania, told reporters at a press briefing, multiple outlets report.
The result is beyond anything June and his colleagues had imagined when they started the clinical trial in 2010, June said at the news briefing, describing how they were skeptical the injected ...
