Driving safely into solid tumors with CAR exosomes

Therapeutic exosomes derived from CAR T cells could avoid the cytotoxic side effects of the engineered cells and overcome barriers in the tumor microenvironment that limit the cells’ efficacy.

The obstacles to deploying CAR T cell therapies against solid tumors include immunosuppressive microenvironments and, across all cancers, treatment-related toxicities such as cytokine release syndrome (CRS). Engineering strategies to manage or prevent CRS include external switches controlling CAR activity, safety switches engineered into CAR Ts and CARs engineered for drug-mediated CAR T clearance (see “Cell Therapies Seek Solid Ground” and “Calibrating CARs”)...