Innovative therapy gives hope to patients whose blood cancer ‘seemed incurable’

A pioneering treatment that edits healthy immune cells to fight cancer has shown promise for adults and children with a rare and aggressive form of leukaemia that “seemed incurable”.

Almost two thirds of patients with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL) involved in a clinical trial of the treatment – known as BE-CAR7 – now remain disease-free.

BE-CAR7 was developed by scientists at Great Ormond Street Hospital (Gosh) and University College London (UCL).

It is a highly advanced version of an immunotherapy known as CAR T-cell treatments.

CAR T-cell therapy typically involves a doctor collecting T cells from a patient.

They are then modified in a lab, with proteins called chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) placed on the surface to recognise and kill cancer.

The immune cells are