Smart cell therapy: combining Boolean logic with CAR-T therapy

A recent collaborative effort from UC San Francisco (UCSF; CA, USA) and Princeton University (NJ, USA) has combined advanced cell engineering with a novel big data computational program to produce a CAR-T therapy that uses Boolean antigen recognition to remain inert in non-cancer cells. The cutting-edge therapy is a significant leap forward in killing cancer cells while leaving normal tissue unscathed – the Holy Grail of oncology research. The so-called ‘smart’ CAR-T therapy uses insight from big data analysis to become active only in the presence of a specific combination of antigens, unique to one particular tumor cell. The therapy...