The Astonishing Team Effort that Led to the First Trial of CAR T Cells for Glioblastoma at Mass General Brigham

It’s fitting that the investigators who developed a new CAR T-based treatment for glioblastoma called their treatment platform “CAR-TEAM” cells, as it took a true team effort to bring their concept from the lab to the clinic.

The team, led by Marcela Maus, MD, PhD, and Bryan Choi, MD, PhD, recently published a study detailing the promising preliminary results of a first-in-human trial for the new therapy, which was designed to target two different sites on glioblastoma tumors.

All three patients in the initial trial showed dramatic but transient reductions in tumor size in imaging scans taken after their treatments.

The team is now exploring ways to improve the longevity of the treatment, either by delivering multiple doses over time or by pairing the treatment with chemotherapy.

While the encouraging results of the trial are the biggest takeaway, just as inspiring is the team effort that went into taking a promising finding from mice in 2019 all the way to a first-in-human trial in 2023.

“That is not something that’s been done a lot historically in an academic medicine setting—basic laboratory research going all the way to clinical trials in patients,” said Maus. “But we’re doing it, and I think it’s really important what you can achieve as a field when you take that approach.” Read more.