Sly CAR-T strategy evades ‘fratricide’ problem to aim at all blood cancers

The problem with the plan was fratricide, among other wanton cellular murders.

Saar Gill and Carl June, cell therapy researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, wanted to make a single treatment that could tackle virtually all blood cancers. It was an audacious goal.

Most cell therapies, such as CAR-T, involve removing a patients’ T cells, arming them with GPS coordinates for that tumor, and then reinfusing them into the battlefield. But different tumors require different coordinates.