Jorge Conde (@jorgecondebio), Andy Tran (@andy23tran), and Lauren Richardson (@lr_bio) discuss new research using engineered T cells to attack and destroy harmful senescence that occurs with aging.
CAR T stands for chimeric antigen receptor T cells
CAR T is a revolutionary therapy which uses engineered T cells to identify and destroy specific cells
CAR T therapy is promising but has also been shown to lack potency and precision
Without specificity, CAR T therapy will kill healthy cells as well as unhealthy ones
CAR T therapy is primarily used in cancer treatment, leukemias, and lymphomas 
Senescence is a biological process where cells stop dividing and go to sleep
Senescence has a critically protective function because it stops potentially disease-causing cells
On the flip side, if too many cells become senescent it can lead to inflammation and disease
In metabolically healthy conditions, harmful senescent cells do get cleared out by the immune system
As immune response weakens with age, senescent cells build up and trigger issues   
Can we identify biomarkers for senescent cells to properly program CAR T cells with specificity?
Can CAR T cells be used to clear senescent cells?
Does the removal of senescent cells have a clinical impact?
Recent advances show promise for the use of CAR T as a possible for aging treatments
New specificity has been developed in CAR T to enable the cells to recognize more than just cancer
In a new study, researchers used CAR T cells to recognize and kill senescent cells
Researchers validated their model with cancer then programmed CAR T cells to attack liver fibrosis, atherosclerosis, and diabetes in mice
Senescence is a key hallmark of aging
We are seeing a paradigm shift in our use of CAR T therapy: instead of using CAR T therapy to kill cells which shouldn’t be there (i.e., cancer) – we can use CAR T therapy to reengineer aging immune system
CAR T therapy has the potential for restoring health, not just combating cancer
With additional research, CAR T therapy could be the standard for treating a wide range of diseases
It would take too long to have clinical studies in aging in humans
High cost
Difficult scaling: Do T cells need to be specific to the person or can there be a universal donor to increase the ability to scalability?
There were some negative side effects related to dosing, which have to be resolved before widespread clinical use