Mij
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Engineered T cells that have been used to treat ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus show promising results.
NEWS Nature: November 26, 2026
Engineered immune cells are being used to successfully treat people with a range of debilitating autoimmune conditions, such as ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Researchers say positive results from around a dozen studies over the past three years suggest CAR-T-cell therapy could eventually be used treat any disease in which the immune system attacks the body.
CAR-T-cell therapy exploits the immune system’s T cells that fight off infection: these cells are collected from a person and tweaked to produce proteins called chimeric antigen receptors. They are then reintroduced into the body to target antigens expressed by B cells, another type of immune cell. In autoimmune disorders, these B cells make antibodies that attack the body’s own healthy tissues.
The use of the therapy for immune conditions has exploded since 2021, when a 20-year-old woman in Germany with severe lupus became the first person with an autoimmune disorder to be treated with CAR T cells. Clinician–researcher David Simon, who was involved in that treatment , says the CAR-T therapies have since entered phase I and II clinical trials for autoimmune conditions including systemic sclerosis, myositis and rheumatoid arthritis. Phase III trials are also under way for lupus and myasthenia gravis, a condition that causes weakness in the muscles that are used to breathe, swallow and see.
Simon, who focuses on rheumatoid arthritis at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin, says people in CAR-T-cell therapy trials for rheumatoid arthritis and lupus seem to be ‘cured’. “They lose their autoantibodies which trigger the disease, and they don’t have any symptoms anymore,” he adds. “This is something totally new which we didn’t observe before.”
NEWS Nature: November 26, 2026
Engineered immune cells are being used to successfully treat people with a range of debilitating autoimmune conditions, such as ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Researchers say positive results from around a dozen studies over the past three years suggest CAR-T-cell therapy could eventually be used treat any disease in which the immune system attacks the body.
CAR-T-cell therapy exploits the immune system’s T cells that fight off infection: these cells are collected from a person and tweaked to produce proteins called chimeric antigen receptors. They are then reintroduced into the body to target antigens expressed by B cells, another type of immune cell. In autoimmune disorders, these B cells make antibodies that attack the body’s own healthy tissues.
The use of the therapy for immune conditions has exploded since 2021, when a 20-year-old woman in Germany with severe lupus became the first person with an autoimmune disorder to be treated with CAR T cells. Clinician–researcher David Simon, who was involved in that treatment , says the CAR-T therapies have since entered phase I and II clinical trials for autoimmune conditions including systemic sclerosis, myositis and rheumatoid arthritis. Phase III trials are also under way for lupus and myasthenia gravis, a condition that causes weakness in the muscles that are used to breathe, swallow and see.
Simon, who focuses on rheumatoid arthritis at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin, says people in CAR-T-cell therapy trials for rheumatoid arthritis and lupus seem to be ‘cured’. “They lose their autoantibodies which trigger the disease, and they don’t have any symptoms anymore,” he adds. “This is something totally new which we didn’t observe before.”