Figure 8.

Adoptive cellular therapies are an effective anti-cancer therapy that genetically modifies a patient’s own cells as an anti-cancer immunotherapy. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T therapies collect a patient’s leukocytes by apheresis and separate CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cells, which are engineered to express CARs. Kymriah and Yescarta are FDA approved therapies currently available to patients. Parallel to CAR T cells, several groups have demonstrated that monocytes derived from the same apheresis product can be differentiated and modified to express CARs (CAR-macrophages (CARMA) and CAR for phagocytosis (CAR-P)). Genetically engineered macrophages (GEMs) are modified to express proteins that overcome immune evasion and support anti-tumor immune cell activity.