Yan Leyfman, Medical Oncologist, Co-Founder and Executive Director of MedNews Week, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“CAR T in AML has always hit the same wall:
No clean target.
Too much overlap with normal hematopoiesis.
So what if the answer wasn’t in tumor biology alone-but in patients who were already cured?
After allogeneic transplant, some AML patients achieve durable remission through a graft-versus-leukemia effect. Hidden in that response are donor-derived antibodies that know exactly what to attack.
Researchers turned that insight into a strategy:
Take those antibodies.
Engineer them into CAR T cells.
The target they found: U5 snRNP200
- Present on AML cells.
- Absent on normal hematopoietic precursors.
A rare combination: selectivity + safety
What happened
CAR T cells targeting U5 snRNP200:
- Eliminated disease in AML models.
- Also active in B-ALL.
Then they pushed it further:
Added IL-18 (‘armored’ CAR T)
Result:
- Enhanced antigen expression.
- Durable remissions.
- Protection against rechallenge.
The bigger idea
Instead of searching blindly for targets.
Learn from the immune systems that already succeeded.
Bottom line
This isn’t just a new CAR T target-it’s a new discovery paradigm:
From engineered guesses – to patient-derived immune intelligence.
A potential path forward for finally unlocking CAR T in AML.”
Title: Development of CAR T cells Targeting a Surface RNA Binding Protein for the Treatment of Acute Leukemias
Authors: Takeshi Fujino, Jennifer Lewis, Bingyi Chen, Tamar Y. Feinberg, Maxim I. Maron, Alexander M. Lewis, Charlotte Wishnack, Quinlan Sievers, Satoshi Kaito, Winson Cai, Sarah Yoo, Serena C. Mathew, Sydney Souness, Erin Burns, Jasmine Um, Elisa de Stanchina, Qing Chang, Besnik Qeriqi, Kevin Chen, Pu Zhang, Susan DeWolf, Joshua T. Weinreb, Renata Mammone, Ileana C. Miranda, Robert F. Stanley, Maria Adriana Cuibus, Kenyon Weis, Brianna Gipson, Cynthia Castro, Nina Fox, Michael S. Lee, Jaime Alvarez-Perez, Daoqi You, Filemon S. Dela Cruz, Alyssa D. Fronk, Martin Akerman, Andrew L. Kung, Omar Abdel-Wahab, Anthony F. Daniyan
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