It may be the quintessential question about cancer therapy: why does a particular treatment work well in some patients and not others with the same disease? The question is especially relevant for immunotherapies known as CAR T-cell therapies precisely because they’re so promising. The therapies, which are made by genetically engineering a patient’s own immune system T cells to attack cancer, can cure about 40% of people with otherwise incurable lymphoma, but others relapse or don’t benefit at all.
