By Benjamin BoettnerCAR-T cells are engineered to carry synthetic membrane-spanning receptor molecules that use their outside-facing portion to bind to antigens on cancer cells, which their inside-facing portion responds to by switching on a powerful tumor cell-destroying program. “The APC-ms approach functions much more naturally than Dynabeads, because highly controllable levels of T-cell signals are embedded into a lipid bilayer, which allows the CAR-T cells to push and pull at them as just as T cells usually do across the ‘immunological synapse’ between them and antigen-presenting cells when T cell stimulation is at its best. Our consortium partners encompass the leading academic institutions and hospitals in the Boston area and throughout the world, including Harvard’s Schools of Medicine, Engineering, Arts & Sciences and Design, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Boston University, Tufts University, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, University of Zürich, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology