As word of the effectiveness of chimeric antigen receptor, or CAR T-cell therapy, for blood cancer continues to spread, excitement is growing about the new treatment and the possibilities it offers for patients with blood cancers and other types of cancer.
The University of Colorado Cancer Center is a national leader in the powerful treatment, in which a patient’s immune cells are removed from their body, taken to a lab and genetically engineered to become fighter cells, then injected back into the patient, where they seek out and destroy cancer cells. Since 2017, six CAR T-cell therapies have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. All are approved for the treatment of blood cancers, including lymphomas, some forms of leukemia, and, most recently, multiple myeloma.
One of the leaders in the development of CAR T-cell therapy is CU Cancer Center member Terry Fry, MD, professor of pediatric-hematology/oncology and bone marrow transplantation in the CU School of Medicine and executive director of the Gates Institute, a translational research institute on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus with biomanufacturing capabilities.
We spoke with Fry about the latest data on CAR T therapy and what’s next for the innovative treatment.