En­gi­neer­ing an on/off switch for CAR-T out of yeast and Juras­sic Park

Al­most as soon as CAR-T emerged in the mid-2010s as a near-cure for some can­cers, so did a ques­tion: How do you give this with­out risk­ing killing pa­tients?

At the time, James Pat­ter­son was wrap­ping an MD-PhD at a yeast lab at Lon­don’s Fran­cis Crick In­sti­tute. Yeast may seem an un­like­ly place to find a fix for can­cer ther­a­py, but read­ing through oth­er re­searchers’ so­lu­tions to CAR-T’s tox­i­c­i­ty, Pat­ter­son won­dered if a method long used by yeast bi­ol­o­gists called aux­otro­phy might be use­ful. You ge­net­i­cal­ly mod­i­fy cells to make them de­pen­dent on a par­tic­u­lar nu­tri­ent. Then you can make them live or die — pro­lif­er­ate or de­plete — by giv­ing or tak­ing away that nu­tri­ent.

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