New Method Produces Longer-Lasting CAR-T Cells

Approach May Improve Blood Cancer Therapy and Move HIV Research Closer to a Cure

Mar. 13, 2026 at 7:00pm

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Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have developed a new strategy to engineer immune cells that dramatically prolongs their effectiveness after being infused into patients to fight cancer and HIV. Their findings, published in Science Advances, describe a manufacturing approach that generates longer-lasting immune cells with more sustained disease control compared to the existing process.

Why it matters

Current CAR-T cell therapies have been limited by the cells' inability to maintain their potency over time, leading to disease relapse in roughly half of treated cancer patients. The same persistence problem has constrained efforts to extend CAR-T therapy to treat people living with HIV. This new approach aims to overcome these limitations by producing CAR-T cells that are more long-lived and capable of self-renewal, potentially leading to more durable remissions in cancer and better HIV control.

The details

The researchers used a specially engineered fusion protein called HCW9206, which links three naturally occurring cytokines (IL-7, IL-15, and IL-21) known to promote T cell survival and immune memory. When used to generate CAR-T cells, this multi-cytokine scaffold approach resulted in more than half of the cells belonging to a rare population of long-lived T memory stem cells, compared to less than 5% using the conventional method. In mouse models, the multi-cytokine scaffold-produced CAR-T cells exhibited enhanced antitumor and antiviral potency, preventing tumor recurrence and eliminating significantly more HIV-infected cells.

  • The findings were published on March 13, 2026 in the journal Science Advances.

The players

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

A premier academic center for basic science research, clinical investigation, and biomedical education located in the Bronx, New York.

Harris Goldstein, M.D.

Professor of pediatrics and of microbiology & immunology, and director of the Einstein-Rockefeller-CUNY-Mount Sinai Center for AIDS Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Erin Cole, M.S.

A graduate student in Dr. Goldstein's laboratory and first author of the study.

HCW Biologics, Inc.

A biotechnology company in Miramar, Florida that developed the protein scaffold used to create the multi-cytokine fusion protein HCW9206.

Caring Cross

A biotechnology company in Gaithersburg, Maryland that collaborated on the study.

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What they’re saying

“Our goal was to engineer therapeutic immune cells so they would not only be powerful killers but also long-lived and capable of self-renewal, to markedly extend their effectiveness after infusion into patients.”

— Harris Goldstein, M.D., Professor of pediatrics and of microbiology & immunology, and director of the Einstein-Rockefeller-CUNY-Mount Sinai Center for AIDS Research

“T memory stem cells are considered to be critical for long-term immune persistence. They can continually replenish the pool of active CAR-T cells, a crucially important attribute for their long-term success in combating both cancer and HIV infection.”

— Harris Goldstein, M.D., Professor of pediatrics and of microbiology & immunology, and director of the Einstein-Rockefeller-CUNY-Mount Sinai Center for AIDS Research

What’s next

The researchers plan to further evaluate the long-term efficacy of the multi-cytokine scaffold-produced CAR-T cells in additional preclinical models and work towards advancing this approach into clinical trials for both cancer and HIV.

The takeaway

This new method for generating CAR-T cells with enhanced longevity and self-renewal capacity represents a promising strategy to improve the durability of CAR-T cell therapies, which could lead to better long-term disease control and potentially functional cures for both cancer and HIV.