CAR-T cell therapy (YouTube video)

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Thought I’d post a link to this video about the CAR-T cell therapy that has apparently been approved for wider testing by the FDA. The success rates are pretty astounding, though the price tag seems like it’s a treatment that would cost too much to make it available on a wider basis (according to the video it’s over $400k for one treatment and, supposedly, the company offering this will end up losing money, at least initially even at that price). The video hints that this might just be the tip of the iceberg wrt it’s applications (leaving aside the cost and some other issues such as death in some cases) for other types of cancers. I have to admit, I hadn’t heard much about this so if anyone has any other insights into this I’d be interested in hearing them.

For anyone who doesn’t know anything about it at all, here is the first part of the wiki linked above:

Chimeric antigen receptors (CARs, also known as chimeric immunoreceptors, chimeric T cell receptors, artificial T cell receptors or CAR-T) are engineered receptors which graft an arbitrary specificity onto an immune effector cell (T cell). Typically, these receptors are used to graft the specificity of a monoclonal antibody onto a T cell, with transfer of their coding sequence facilitated by retroviral vectors. The receptors are called chimeric because they are composed of parts from different sources.

A CAR therapy for cancer, using a technique called adoptive cell transfer,[1] has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for use against acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.[2] T cells are removed from a patient and modified so that they express receptors specific to the patient’s particular cancer. The T cells, which can then recognize and kill the cancer cells, are reintroduced into the patient. Modification of T-cells sourced from donors other than the patient are also under investigation.