10/01/2026
New cross-disciplinary research from Drexel's Howley College could make it easier to grow large numbers of cancer-fighting CAR T cells in the lab while keeping them healthy and effective.
CAR T-cell therapy uses a patient's own immune cells, engineered to recognize and attack cancer. One challenge is that these cells tend to wear out as they multiply. The research group of Xiao Huang, PhD, an assistant professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering and Science, designed tiny particles that deliver carefully balanced signals to the cells. In lab tests, the particles kept human CAR T cells growing for more than 100 days, and the expanded cells kept their ability to kill tumor cells.
The study was published in Nature Communications. Co-authors include Ania-Ariadna Baetica of Howley's Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics and collaborators at UC San Francisco, Stanford, Penn, Thomas Jefferson University and Brown.
