Longevity & AgingIn Vivo CAR-T Therapy Moves Toward Scalable, Off-the-Shelf Cancer Treatment
In vivo CAR-T therapy engineers a patient's T cells directly inside the body by delivering viral or non-viral vectors systemically, eliminating the complex ex vivo manufacturing process that currently makes CAR-T therapy slow, costly, and inaccessible. Key platforms include engineered lentiviral vectors, adeno-associated viral vectors, and lipid nanoparticles carrying CAR-encoding mRNA. Emerging tools like biomaterial scaffolds and ultrasound-mediated transfection enable localized, controlled T cell reprogramming. Early clinical trials in multiple myeloma and B-cell malignancies show strong antitumor responses, even without preconditioning chemotherapy. Major hurdles remain: precise T cell targeting, tumor microenvironment immunosuppression, antigen escape, and safety risks including vector genotoxicity and LNP reactogenicity.
