Cars pick up another passenger: Organ transplantation

With over 30,000 patients having received CAR T cells as a treatment for malignancy, our experience in oncology has facilitated numerous efforts to adapt the CAR therapeutic platform for diseases and conditions beyond cancer. Recognition of their efficacy, where traditional small molecule or biologic therapies fail, has spurred multiple efforts leveraging CAR T cells for immune modulation in the setting of organ/tissue transplantation. In the present review, we discuss CAR T cell approaches that are currently under development, to target both humoral and cellular alloimmunity. These include CAR T platforms repurposed from oncology and autoimmune diseases, as well as ones designed specifically to target alloimmunity in transplant. We also present important challenges and application considerations that will need to be addressed before we can expect successful clinical translation. Finally, we highlight a few of the exciting advances currently in development that are likely to pave a smoother path to translating CAR T cell therapies into transplant patients.