Stem-cell memory T (T_SCM) cells are a rare subset of immune cells with the ability to self-renew, persist long term, and mount potent anti-tumor responses. These properties make them an attractive candidate for next-generation CAR T-cell therapies. However, their clinical potential has not previously been demonstrated in humans. An international team of researchers co-led by Professor Luca Gattinoni from the Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy (LIT) and Dr. James Kochenderfer from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), has now published a new study in Cell reporting, for the first time, that CAR T cells designed to acquire a T_SCM phenotype demonstrate a favorable safety profile and can induce complete remissions at remarkably low doses without the chemotherapy preconditioning, which is typically used in CAR T-cell therapy to enhance engraftment.

A deadly cancer, adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma, may be largely preventable through targeted maternal screening, a national study finds. Caribbean-born individuals in the U.S. face rates more than 30 times higher, driven by a virus passed from mother to child—highlighting a clear, missed opportunity for prevention.

Years before he conducted the research that would earn him a Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD, was a postdoctoral scientist at Gladstone Institutes, studying genes. There, he helped discover a gene (now called eIF4G2) that’s essential for early embryonic development. Then, the story pauses. Without the technology needed to develop an animal model to further investigate the gene, Yamanaka moved on to develop induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells—adult cells that have been reprogrammed into an embryonic state. That work earned him the Nobel Prize, but he never forgot his first gene. Now, 30 years since his postdoc, Yamanaka has circled back to eIF4G2. In a study published in the journal Cell Stem Cell, he and his colleagues finally created a sophisticated animal model to study the gene. With that tool, they’ve now shown that eIF4G2 is indispensable for adult intestinal health.