Remote-controlled CARs

A three-way academic collaboration has developed an ultrasound-based method for controlling both when and where CAR T cells are active. The technology could move the field a step beyond designs that incorporate only on- or off-switches as fail-safes against dangerous inflammatory reactions.

In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last week, a group from the University of California San Diego, the University of Southern California and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center described an ultrasound-triggered genetic circuit system that restricts expression of a gene to the time and place where the ultrasound hits. To showcase the system, the researchers used the construct to regulate CARs expressed in therapeutic T cells...