Revolutionizing Asthma Treatment: Chinese Researchers Develop Long-Term Therapy Using CAR-T Cells in Mice

A team of Chinese researchers from Tsinghua University in Beijing have developed a treatment for asthma using CAR-T cells that resulted in remission of the disease for at least a year in mice after a single injection. The details of this strategy were published in the journal Nature Immunology. Although the findings have not yet been tested in humans, they suggest a potential avenue for the development of long-term therapies for allergic asthma, which affects over 300 million people worldwide and causes 250,000 deaths annually.

The CAR-T cell therapy involves modifying a patient’s T lymphocytes in a laboratory setting to recognize and combat specific cells, in this case, eosinophils involved in allergic asthma. By targeting these white blood cells, the therapy was able to alleviate asthma symptoms in mice by blocking proteins that contribute to the condition’s pathology. The modified CAR-T cells continued to prevent allergic immune responses in the mice for at least a year, suggesting long-lasting effects of the treatment.

The researchers observed that the modified CAR-T cells continued to prevent allergic immune responses in the mice for at least a year, suggesting long-lasting effects of the treatment. While the therapy will need to be tested in human clinical trials for safety and efficacy, it holds promise for the treatment of chronic asthma and potentially other allergic diseases. José Gregorio Soto Campos, an expert in Pulmonology and Allergy, highlighted the high-quality research published in this study as it introduces new opportunities for asthma therapy using CAR-T cells.