New Method Produces Longer-Lasting CAR-T Cells to Fight Disease

Research team develops manufacturing approach that generates more persistent immune cells for cancer and HIV treatment

Mar. 16, 2026 at 2:34pm

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A research team led by scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine has 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-fighting abilities compared to the existing process.

Why it matters

Current CAR-T cell therapies can produce dramatic initial remissions, but their killing ability often diminishes over time, leading to cancer relapse in roughly half of treated patients. The same persistence problem has constrained efforts to extend CAR-T therapy to treat people living with HIV. This new manufacturing approach aims to overcome these limitations by generating CAR-T cells that are more long-lived and capable of self-renewal, providing more sustained control of disease.

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 a rare population of long-lived T memory stem cells, which can continually replenish the pool of active CAR-T cells. In mouse models, these multi-cytokine scaffold-produced CAR-T cells exhibited enhanced antitumor and antiviral potency compared to conventionally manufactured CAR-T cells.

  • The findings were published on March 16, 2026 in the journal Science Advances.

The players

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

One of the nation's premier academic centers 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.

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

HCW Biologics, Inc.

A biotechnology company based in Miramar, Florida that developed the protein scaffold used in the study.

Caring Cross

A biotechnology company based 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 at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Science Advances)

“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 at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Science Advances)

What’s next

The findings from this research could have important implications across the CAR-T cell field, potentially reducing blood cancer relapse rates and improving long-term remission for cancer patients. For HIV, these longer-lasting immune cells may one day help maintain viral control after stopping antiretroviral therapy, a critical step toward a functional cure.

The takeaway

This new manufacturing approach for generating CAR-T cells with enhanced persistence and self-renewal capabilities represents an important advancement in the field of cell-based immunotherapies, offering the potential to dramatically improve outcomes for patients with cancer and HIV by prolonging the disease-fighting abilities of these 'living drugs'.