5 Lupus Patients Are In Remission After CAR-T Cell Therapy
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), an autoimmune disease that ranges from mild to life-threatening, has historically lacked a cure. The disease involves one’s own antibodies attacking bodily tissues, resulting in inflammation and damage to various organs. Although most SLE patients are able to live happy and otherwise healthy lives by mitigating their symptoms, doing so can be tiring and cumbersome. Others experience such significant damage to their internal organs that they endure kidney failure, cardiovascular disease, and other medical phenomena that can result in early death. This range of experiences has understandably caused anxiety for many SLE patients, but a revised cell therapy out of Germany suggests it won’t always be this way.
The treatment, called CAR-T cell therapy, has previously been used to treat cancer but rarely to fight autoimmune diseases. Scientists from Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg and Universitätsklinikum Erlangen took T cells, a type of white blood cell, from five SLE patients and genetically engineered them to find and kill B cells, which produce antibodies. The engineered T cells successfully killed off each patient’s B cells, thus preventing further autoimmune deterioration.
But B cells are vital to the immune system’s function; without them, bodies wouldn’t be able to fight off viruses and infections. Over a few months, the patients’ bone marrow produced more B cells. These B cells didn’t recognize healthy tissue as a disease risk, meaning they left the patients’ healthy cells alone. The scientists had performed what they now refer to as an “immune reset.”
Their first patient, treated in early 2021, has now been SLE-free for a year and a half. The other four patients have been in remission for six to 12 months. The scientists plan on continuing to monitor their success over a longer period of time, as well as test CAR-T cell therapy on a larger cohort of SLE patients. It could be the case that people with more severe or late-stage SLE won’t find the same success with CAR-T cell therapy as others might. Nonetheless, their experiment offers a bit of promise for many people with an otherwise arduous disease.
Continue reading
Voyager 2 Probe Talks to Upgraded NASA Network After 8 Months of Silence
NASA just said "hello" to Voyager 2, and the probe said it back.
Hayabusa2 Spacecraft Completes Mission, Returns Asteroid Sample to Earth
After six years in space, the Hayabusa2 sample container landed on Earth, providing scientists with the first significant samples collected directly from an asteroid.
Minecraft With Ray Tracing Now Available for All Windows 10 Players
You don't usually think of Minecraft as a realistic game, but the developers have been hard at work adding RTX ray tracing to the game for the last eight months. It's finally out of beta today, and it really works with the blocky look of Minecraft.
190,000 Ceiling Fans Recalled After Blades Fly Off, Hitting People
King of Fans is recalling some 190,000 ceiling fans sold through Home Depot after the blades began detaching during operation.