1<\/a> as effectively as conventional CAR-T-cell therapies without suppressing the immune system, a serious side effect. The engineered cells could also be used to treat some people with autoimmune conditions, such as lupus.<\/p>\nCAR-T-cell therapy involves tweaking a person\u2019s immune cells known as T cells to produce proteins called chimeric antigen receptors (CARs). These receptors target antigens on B cells, another type of immune cell, in tumours. Conventionally, this antigen of choice has been the CD19 molecule.<\/p>\n
Researchers have developed a CAR-T-cell therapy called CART4-34 that targets B cell receptors carrying the gene IGHV4-34 \u2014 thought to be involved in immune responses \u2014 which is found in high levels in cancer cells. The scientists found that CART4-34 therapy was as effective as CD19 CAR-T therapy at destroying cancer cells in genetically modified mice with a cancer called diffuse large B cell lymphoma. The CART4-34 therapy did not target healthy, non-cancerous B cells. The IGHV4-34 gene is rarely found in healthy cells.<\/p>\n
CD19 CAR-T therapy, however, destroys any cells carrying the CD19 molecule, which leads to the suppression of the immune system, says Andrea Henden, a clinician\u2013researcher at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane, Australia. \u201cIf you\u2019re lucky enough to get a cure for your lymphoma, the most likely other threat to your health is through infection,\u201d she adds. \u201cIt is quite a fundamental problem with our current use of CAR T cells.\u201d<\/p>\n
Autoimmune diseases<\/p>\n
The engineered T cells could also treat some autoimmune conditions. Antibodies that target cells carrying IGHV4-34 are present in many people with lupus and are associated with more aggressive forms of the disease, says Marco Ruella, a clinician\u2013researcher at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, whose team developed the CART4-34 therapy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Engineered T cells (pink) produce proteins called chimeric antigen receptors that target antigens in cancer cells (blue).Credit: Steve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[847,21124,59,4230,5898,4231,90,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-409134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-cancer","9":"tag-diseases","10":"tag-gb","11":"tag-humanities-and-social-sciences","12":"tag-medical-research","13":"tag-multidisciplinary","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Engineered](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/d41586-026-00358-6_52019400.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n