car t-cell therapy has been developed as an individual treatment against cancer the patient's t-cells are reprogrammed and the car short for chimeric antigen receptor is artificially expressed to fight cancer cells but more about this in a second make sure to follow me on twitter at henrik's lab and make sure to subscribe to the channel if you haven't done it yet t-cells are an important pillar of the human immune system they can mount a strong response against viral infections and they can recognize and eliminate cancer cells however often cancer cells have acquired mechanisms to escape the immune defense this is a huge problem to solve this issue one needs to find out which specific antigens are expressed only on the cell surface of cancer cells car t cells are modified to detect these antigens like regular t cells they possess normal t cell receptors additionally specific chimeric antigen receptors are expressed artificially similar to the key log principle car t cells perfectly match the tumor antigen and the t cells cytotoxic mechanisms take care to eliminate these cancer cells the only characteristic that makes car t cells different from natural t cells is the chimeric antigen receptor but how are car t cells made in step number one blood is removed from the patient and the t cells are isolated and cultured step 2 involves the genetic modification for that one can use a viral vector such as the lentivirus this virus carries the genetic information that encodes for the chimeric antigen receptor in a process known as viral transduction the t cells are infected with the lentivirus which inserts the car gene following transcription and translation the protein receptor is produced and the patient's t cells are now equipped with tumor-specific chimeric antigen receptors in the next step the cultured car t-cell population is expanded in the lab and then finally infused back into the patient inside the patient the car t cells patrol the whole body once they encounter tumor cells with the distinct antigen such as cd19 they recognize the cancer cell and the altered conformation of the receptor activates downstream signaling there are many different ways how car t cells can eliminate the cancer cell a common mode of action is the release of cytokines which kills the cancer cells make sure to subscribe to the channel and watch my latest video here thanks for watching