Making normal hematopoiesis invisible to CAR T cells

Two recent studies, by Casirati et al. and Wellhausen et al., report genetically engineering normal hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) to be resistant to chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells, by changing a single amino acid in the target protein that abrogates CAR binding, without compromising protein function. This allows for selective targeting of cancer cells without harming normal hematopoietic cells.