【AI前沿】A revolutionary cancer treatment could transform autoimmune disease

striking resultsA revolutionary cancer treatment could transform autoimmune diseaseResearchers are testing CAR T cell therapy as a way to reset the immune system.Amber Dance, Knowable Magazine–May 17, 2026 7:00 am|55Artist’s rendering of a T cell.Credit:Getty ImagesArtist’s rendering of a T cell.Credit:Getty ImagesText settingsStory textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidthStandardWideLinksStandardOrange Subscribers onlyLearn moreMinimize to navAt age 49, Jan Janisch-Hanzlik’s multiple sclerosis was destroying her freedom to live the life she wanted. She gave up her active nursing job for a desk role. Frequent falls made her afraid to carry her grandchildren. She had to move to a bigger house to make room for the wheelchair she feared she might end up needing full-time.Even the best available medication wasn’t improving Janisch-Hanzlik’s symptoms, and she worried they’d only get worse. So when she learned about a trial of CAR T cell therapy at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, close to the city of Blair where she lives, she phoned the clinic every other month until they were ready toenroll her as the first patient.Originally designed to target and wipe out cancer byreprogramming the patient’s immune cells, CAR T is now being offered to patientsin hundreds of clinical trialsfor autoimmune conditions like multiple sclerosis, lupus, Graves’ disease, vasculitis, and many others. The hope is that CAR T can duplicate the success it has demonstrated in a range of blood cancers by hunting down and eliminating cells that target the self in autoimmune diseases. This would essentially reset the body’s defenses to a state like the one that existed before the disease took hold.But along with CAR T’s promise come risks, questions, and challenges. There’s uncertainty about how well it will work forautoimmunityand how long any benefits might last, as well as what long-term side effects might arise. Janisch-Hanzlik knew this when she sat down to receive the experimental treatment on June 9, 2025; she felt a mix of hope and fear knowing that she would be spending the next week being monitored for side effects including dangerous inflammation.In addition to her clinical expertise and desire to pioneer a new treatment, Janisch-Hanzlik’s two young grandchildren helped inspire her pursuit of a treatment with known risks and uncertain benefits. Because multiple sclerosis has a genetic component, Janisch-Hanzlik knew that they have an elevated chance of going through the same struggle she has. “I would want to be able to say I did everything that I possibly could to prevent them, or anyone else, from having something like this,” she says.From cancer to autoimmunityThe first CAR T cancer treatment wasapproved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2017for an aggressive form of leukemia. Since then, the powerful and intensive treatment hasresulted in long-term remissionfor many cancer patients.The basic premise of CAR T is to activate the power of key immune cells calledT cells. T cells normallyrecognize other cellsthat have been infected by a virus or bacterium, or are otherwise abnormal, and either destroy them or recruit other parts of the immune system to do so.In CAR T for cancer, scientists engineer those T cells to specifically hunt and destroy malignant cells. The technologygot its startwhen cancer researchers figured out how to take out a patient’s own T cells, insert DNA instructions for a “chimeric antigen receptor,” or CAR, and put them back into the person’s circulation. The CAR, which sits on the T cell’s surface and latches on to a specific molecular partner on the surface of cancerous cells, activates the T cell to attack.Today CAR T cells are most commonly programmed to attack B cells, another key immune player. B cells are normally responsiblefor making antibodies, but in certain blood cancers, they proliferate out of control. By giving T cells a CAR that recognizes one of a couple of molecules unique to the B cell surface, the cells are reprogrammed to find and eliminate those cancerous cells.B cells also are the central problem in many autoimmune conditions: They mistakenly make antibodies against normal tissues instead of against invading pathogens. So as CAR T began to succeed against B cell cancers, it didn’t take long for doctors to reason that CAR T therapy might also be able to wipe out bad B cells in people with autoimmunity.There are many variations on CAR T procedures, but the basic process involves removing, modifying, and reinfusing patient T cells so they can attack their target, which is B cells in the case of autoimmune disease.Credit:Knowable MagazineThere are many variations on CAR T procedures, but the basic process involves removing, modifying, and reinfusing patient T cells so they can attack their target, which is B cells in the case of autoimmune disease.Credit:Knowable MagazineA German team pioneered autoimmune CAR T in a woman with lupus,reporting positive resultsin 2021.