“With the rise of CAR T-cell therapy in oncology, Dr. Georg Schett, a rheumatologist and immunologist at the University of Erlangen in Germany, started mulling a new idea to help lupus patients. Lupus causes the body’s B cells — white blood cells that produce antibodies — to go haywire. In CAR T-cell therapy, a patient’s own T cells, a type of immune cell, are extracted and engineered to wipe out disease-causing B cells. (One patient who had a relapse underwent CAR T-cell therapy a second time and is now symptom free.) In the meantime, patients say the treatment has given them an opportunity to live a normal life.”From New York Times.