Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cells from patients whose cancers did not respond to CD19-targeted CAR T therapy had gene regulation signatures that could potentially facilitate treatment resistance, according to results presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2022, held April 8-13 in New Orleans. Over 19,000 scientists and physicians are registered for the AACR (American Asssociation for Cancer Research) conference, with ~80% (~15,200) attending in person and ~20% (~3,800) attending virtually. The AACR has over 50,000 members worldwide. “We identified a signature of nonresponse that is present and detectable prior to treatment,” said Katherine Masih, an NIH-Cambridge scholar in the Genetics Branch at the National Cancer Institute, who presented the study. “The data support that these leukemias are relatively plastic and exhibit multi-lineage potential, similar to stem cells, which we suspect allows them to more rapidly adapt to the evolutionary pressures of CD19 CAR T cells,” she added.