Djordje Atanackovic, MD

T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is a serious cancer that affects part of the immune system called T cells. It’s especially hard to treat in adults, and current treatments often don’t work well. A special treatment called CAR T cell therapy—where doctors change a patient’s own immune cells to fight cancer—has worked well for some other types of cancer. But using it for T-ALL has been very difficult. One problem is that the CAR T cells can accidentally attack healthy T cells, and sometimes even attack each other.We recently identified a new target called CD229, a marker found on both cancerous and some healthy T cells. We made CAR T cells that attack cells with CD229. The exciting part is that these new CAR T cells can still kill cancer cells but don’t harm as many healthy T cells. This is because healthy T cells lower the amount of CD229 when they are activated, so they are not attacked.We improved our CAR T cells even more by making them less “sticky,” so they are more careful about which cells they attack. Tests in the lab and in animals showed that these new CAR T cells still fight cancer well and are safer. Now, our team is testing this treatment on real samples from many T-ALL patients. If it works, we will start a small clinical trial. This new treatment could be a big step forward, giving hope to people with T cell cancers by offering a better and safer option.