A first-in-human trial testing a novel allogeneic synthetic TCR and antigen receptor (STAR) T cell therapy has shown encouraging early results in patients with severe, treatment-resistant systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) complicated by lupus nephritis (LN).

Published in Nature Medicine , the study evaluated the investigational product YTS109—a hypoimmune allogeneic T cell product engineered using CRISPR-Cas9 to knock out several genes associated with immune rejection and graft-versus-host disease and to integrate a CD19-targeting synthetic TCR and antigen receptor (STAR) precisely into the TRAC locus to enable physiological TCR-like signaling. These findings suggest that engineered allogeneic T cells may provide a safe, effective, and scalable alternative to autologous CAR

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