Immunology

Biography

Biography: Rebekah Diamond

Abstract

Introduction:
Chimeric antigen receptor therapy (CART) is a decades old approach to cancer immunotherapy that has gained recent attention as clinical trials show its efficacy in treating chemotherapy resistant leukemia. This technology is a powerful, targeted immunotherapy therapy. Given the rapid advances in CART and increasingly efficient production techniques, it follows that this therapy could be used for other disease processes with targetable molecules for engineered immune cells. This study evaluated current scientific investigation into the uses of chimeric antigen receptor therapy in treating non-oncological disease.

Methods:
A literature database review was conducted using Pubmed.com. The phrase “chimeric antigen receptor” was typed into the database search engine. All resulting titles were assessed and those relating to CART or chimeric antigen receptors in non-oncological disease were noted and reviewed.

Results:
The Pubmed.com search returned 2706 results with the above-described parameters. Of these, approximately one half resulted from the individual search words and deemed irrelevant. Of the remaining, only 16 papers meeting the description of non-oncological chimeric antigen receptors (N=11 infectious disease, N=4 autoimmune, N=1 allergy).

Conclusion:
The investigation into non-oncological uses of CAR therapy is extremely limited but early studies show promise. The majority of research is in preclinical investigation. This technology should emerge as an important therapy as CART research continues to show efficacy cancer treatment.