CAR T-Cell Therapy The Future of Cancer Treatment

Ajouté : 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]We can put in a put a gene that encodes something on the surface of T cells that will make them programmed to search and destroy for cancer cells. And what that means chimeric is that these are stitched together. This is a receptor that was designed in a lab, does not exist in nature, but can be put into a piece of DNA, delivered into a T cell. And when that DNA goes into the genetic code of the T cell, all of a sudden the T cell will start making proteins that go on the surface and act as these artificial sensors. And those CARs, then when those T cells get reinfused into a patient the way that you get like a a blood transfusion, those CARs are directed to go against cancers.

[00:00:44]She She's become a heroic figure, Emily Whitehead. She was I think eight at the time, and she had a form of leukemia that hadn't res- It just was for some reason, whatever reason, it failed all the treatments. And it just nothing worked. Her to own T cells were genetically modified, and we could talk about how that was done. It's actually done with like a pretty crude technique that's been around. Actually used viruses, lentiviruses. These are sort of modified HIV viruses to deliver this extra piece of DNA that encoded the CAR.

[00:01:17]It This was done on her cells.

[00:01:20]And then after that extra gene was put into the T cells, the T cells were reinfused into her body.

[00:01:27]And it was not a straight forward course.

[00:01:30]She She ended up in the ICU. The immune system had to We people in real time people had to figure out how to control the immune system and the side effects.

[00:01:38]But as that was controlled, all of a sudden her cancer cells disappeared.