The Baylor liver cancer CAR T trial will test whether two infusions can repeat the toddler's remission in other patients
Baylor College of Medicine research team
Technology & Innovation Active Updated Sep 23, 2026
Can engineered immune cells work against solid tumors?
CAR T cell therapy takes aim at solid tumors
Where it stands as of Sep 23, 2026
CAR T cell therapy is showing durable results against solid tumors on more than one front. Beyond the GPNMB-targeted glioblastoma work, a Baylor College of Medicine team used a 3-year-old boy's own reprogrammed immune cells to clear metastatic liver cancer that had resisted surgery and chemotherapy twice, and he remained cancer-free a year later. Both results rest on a single patient each, so durability and repeatability in a larger group are still unproven.
CAR T cell therapy has worked wonders against blood cancers but has struggled against solid tumors like brain, breast and lung cancer because they share no single consistent target. Two independent research teams have now converged on the same cell-surface protein, GPNMB, which sits on both the cancer cells and the immune cells that shield tumors from attack. The arc will run as early single-patient and animal results are tested for durability and safety in larger trials.
The story so far
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Sep 23, 2026 Latest
A Baylor College of Medicine team engineered CAR T cells from a 3-year-old boy's own immune cells, with a built-in kill switch, to treat metastatic liver cancer that had returned twice after surgery and chemotherapy. Two infusions cleared his tumors and he remained cancer-free a year later with no serious side effects, treated entirely as an outpatient.
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Jul 11, 2026
Sheila Singh's team at McMaster engineered CAR T cells against GPNMB that rapidly destroyed glioblastoma in patient tissue samples and shrank tumors in mice, while a second team used the same target against an aggressive soft-tissue cancer, and one infusion in an early trial stabilized a single patient's disease for three months with no serious side effects.
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Feb 7, 2022
In a first-in-human trial, four children and young adults with diffuse midline glioma, a brainstem and spinal cord cancer that is nearly always fatal, were given GD2-targeted CAR T cells. Three of the four improved both in how they felt and in what their scans showed, and the most dangerous side effects proved manageable. It was one of the clearest signals yet that engineered T cells could act on a solid tumor inside the nervous system.
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Aug 30, 2017
The FDA approved tisagenlecleucel, sold as Kymriah, for children and young adults with an aggressive acute leukemia that had resisted or returned after other treatment. It was the first CAR T cell therapy cleared in the United States. A patient's own T cells were re-engineered to hunt a marker on the cancer, turning years of lab work into an approved treatment for blood cancer.
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Dec 29, 2016
A man whose glioblastoma had spread through his brain and down his spine received CAR T cells aimed at IL13 receptor alpha 2, a protein common on brain tumors, infused directly into his brain and the fluid around it. Every tumor shrank, several disappeared, and the response lasted about seven and a half months. For one of the deadliest cancers known, it was a startling result.
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Dec 1, 2011
Doctors at Baylor College of Medicine treated 11 children who had active neuroblastoma with T cells re-engineered to recognize GD2, a molecule that studs the surface of the tumor, and three of them reached complete remission. It was early evidence that CAR T cells, already promising against blood cancers, could push a solid tumor into retreat. The children whose engineered cells survived longest tended to do the best.
On the record
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