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Risky Experimental Cancer Therapy Shows Promise For Blood Cancers

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A group of killer T cells (green and red) surrounding a cancer cell (blue, center). (National Institutes of Health/Flickr)
A group of killer T cells (green and red) surrounding a cancer cell (blue, center). (National Institutes of Health/Flickr)

There's increasing excitement in the world of cancer research regarding the potential of immunotherapy — treatments that use a patient's own immune system to fight cancer.

One promising experimental therapy, particularly for blood cancers, is called CAR-T cell therapy. It's very risky, and brutal on the body. But when it works, it's been shown make cancers disappear entirely.

Here & Now's Meghna Chakrabarti talks with Meghana Keshavan, biotech correspondent at the health and medicine publication STAT, about how CAR-T works, and how close it is to moving out of the experimental phase and into the mainstream.

Guest

Meghana Keshavan, biotech correspondent for STAT. She tweets @megkesh.

This segment aired on August 24, 2016.

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