Cancer patient finds hope – and remission – in CAR T cell therapy

When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced its approval of a new immunotherapy in August 2017, it was a breakthrough for precision medicine. The immunotherapy – used to treat a form of pediatric leukemia – became the first FDA-approved, commercially available chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR T) therapy.

The therapy uses Cell Therapy Systems (CTS) Dynabeads technology, developed by Thermo Fisher, to activate and expand T cells that have been genetically engineered to recognize and fight cancers unique to each patient. This all starts with the patient’s own cells, which are infused back into them after the process is complete.