Miracle CAR‐T Wins $400K! 🏆

Merkin Prize Honors CAR T‑Cell Trailblazers Who Turned Immune Cells into Cancer Killers

Summary

• Award: The 2025  Richard N. Merkin Prize in Biomedical Technology (US $400 k) goes to Carl June, Bruce Levine, Isabelle Rivière, and Michel Sadelain.

• Achievement: They created chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T‑cell therapy—a process that removes a patient’s T cells, genetically engineers them to spot tumor proteins (notably CD19), and infuses them back to seek‑and‑destroy cancer cells.

• Impact: Since the first patient treatments in the late 2000s, seven FDA‑approved CAR T products have reached the clinic, treating > 45 000 people with otherwise intractable blood cancers and delivering thousands of long‑lasting remissions.

• Next frontiers: The same platform is showing early promise against autoimmune and infectious diseases as manufacturing and targeting strategies evolve.

Takeaways

Why It Matters

CAR T therapy marks one of the most dramatic proofs that genetic engineering can convert basic immunology into curative, personalized medicines. Recognizing its inventors signals how cell‑based therapies are moving from “last‑chance” cancer options toward broader, scalable treatments for many serious diseases.

🔗 Read the full article: https://www.broadinstitute.org/news/2025-merkin-prize-biomedical-technology-awarded-pioneers-car-t-cell-therapy