CRISPR could help doctors attack blood cancer without destroying healthy cells

For some of the most aggressive blood cancers, a stem cell transplant may be the only treatment with the potential to cure the disease. Even so, cancers can return after transplantation, leaving doctors with limited options.

A new clinical trial led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that genetically modifying donor stem cells before transplantation could make follow-up cancer treatments safer and potentially more effective. The strategy removes a specific protein from donor cells so that therapies aimed at that protein can attack cancer while sparing healthy transplanted cells.

The study was conducted at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine, and 14 other sites in the U.S. and Canada. The results were published in Nature Medicine.