During a press conference at the 2013 ASH Annual meeting, Dr Stephen Grupp presents data from a study on gene therapy in paediatric and adult leukaemia.

This study report, which provides select results from a group of cell therapy trials conducted by investigators at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania, used the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) cell engineering approach to manipulate the T cells of 22 children and five adults with relapsed, treatment-resistant acute lymphocytic leukaemia. After treatment with their own cells re-engineered to seek, attack, and kill leukaemic cells, 24 patients (19 children, five adults) achieved a complete response (CR).