The emerging cancer treatment that’s exciting scientists: ‘We’ve just scratched the surface on what’s possible’
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- CAR T‑cell therapy has received four approvals from the Therapeutic Goods Administration for blood‑cancer treatments since 2018.
- Sam Neill disclosed that his stage‑three cancer entered remission after CAR T‑cell therapy in a Sydney clinical trial, calling the result “science at its best”.
- Prof Misty Jenkins called CAR T‑cell therapy a “game‑changer” and said scientists have “just scratched the surface on what’s possible”.
- Researchers are engineering CAR T‑cell therapy to attack solid tumours, reporting early promising results but noting challenges in guiding T‑cells to tumour cells.
- CAR T‑cell therapy works by extracting a patient’s T‑cells, inserting a chimeric antigen receptor (GPS), expanding them in the lab, and infusing them back, offering a single‑infusion, tumour‑specific alternative to chemotherapy.
Why it matters: Blood‑cancer patients in Australia gain a new, potentially curative option as four CAR T‑cell therapies receive TGA approval, while the high cost of the treatment may strain health‑system budgets.
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