At 40, Lynn Montgomery Haga was diagnosed with stiff person syndrome, a rare autoimmune disease that can cause severe muscle spasms and rigidity.
Then she became the first person in the United States to receive CAR T cell therapy for her condition. The experimental treatment is from Kyverna Therapeutics. Within weeks, her mobility began to come back.
CAR T cell therapy was developed to treat cancer and is now being tested against autoimmune diseases. Doctors take some of a patient’s own immune cells and genetically engineer them in a lab to recognize B cells, some of which drive the disease. The engineered cells go back into the body, find the B cells and destroy them. The goal is to “reset” the immune system so the body can replace its old B cells with healthy new ones.
Doctors don’t yet know whether that reset could be permanent, but they hope a single treatment could have long-lasting effects. If the FDA approves the therapy, it could pave the way for CAR T treatments for other autoimmune diseases, such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
Writer & narrator: Meghan Rosen
Videography: AAron Ontiveroz
Video editor: Damien S. Alipour
Animator: Eric Pio
Producer: Mandana Tadayon
Read the full article: www.sciencenews.org/article/car-t-cell-therapy-autoimmune-diseases
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