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Autoimmune disease

Developing cell therapies for lupus

Nature Medicine (2025)Cite this article

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Two phase 1 studies report promising outcomes with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapies in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, but the next stage of development must address key pitfalls around comparator arms and ancillary immune-modulating treatments.

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Fig. 1: Ancillary therapies may affect cell therapy outcomes in SLE.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, Oklahoma City, OK, USA

    Joan T. Merrill & Judith A. James

  2. University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK, USA

    Joan T. Merrill & Judith A. James

Authors
  1. Joan T. Merrill
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  2. Judith A. James
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Correspondence to Joan T. Merrill.

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Competing interests

J.T.M. is a consultant for AbbVie, Amgen, Artiva, Autolus, Biogen, BMS, Boerhinger Ingelheim, EMD Serono, Genentech, GSK, Lilly, Merck MSD, Novartis, Sanofi, Takeda, UCB and Zenas. J.A.J. is a consultant for GSK and Novartis.

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Merrill, J.T., James, J.A. Developing cell therapies for lupus. Nat Med (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-03987-y

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