The History of Cellular Therapies

The approval of multiple CAR-T cell and T cell engaging products for lymphoma, leukemia and multiple myeloma in recent years, in addition to hundreds of active clinical trials in cancer using these platforms, marks the start of a new era in gene and cellular therapy for cancer. However, these remarkable achievements in medicine are built upon thousands of years of advancement in the understanding of cancer and immunity with rapid acceleration in the last few decades. In this chapter, we will broadly review historical aspects of gene and cellular therapy development, focusing on major milestones.