Life-saving cancer gene therapy under investigation after being linked to rare secondary cancers

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has revealed that it is investigating a serious side effect of a revolutionary class of cancer therapies. The agency announced reports of T-cell malignancies in patients receiving CAR (chimeric antigen receptor)-T cell therapies, surprising researchers in the field. CAR-T is often the last resort treatment for patients with blood and blood tissue cancers.

CAR-T requires a patient’s T cells to be extracted and their receptor genetically modified using a viral vector. Then target proteins on the surface of diseased B cells.

CAR-T requires the engineered T cells to be grown up in a lab and reinfused into the original donor. The modified T cell receptor latches onto the target protein and kills cancerous B cells. The first two CAR-T therapies were approved in the US in 2017 to treat a blood cancer.