Riding the coattails of CAR-T cancer therapies, scientists have begun to explore a spin-off: using similar immune cells to treat autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes and prevent rejection of transplanted organs.
In CAR-T therapies, T cells are extracted from a patient’s blood, reprogrammed to attack cancer cells, and then re-infused into the bloodstream to carry out their new assignment.
Scientists – including those at Caladrius Biosciences and TxCell – are now engineering a subgroup of these immune cells, called T regulatory cells, or Tregs, in hopes of tamping down the wayward parts of the immune system responsible for autoimmune diseases and organ rejection.
