Ten patients who received experimental CAR T treatment for brain tumors could represent a new frontier in personalized cancer immunotherapy.

Synthetic biology promises to revolutionize cancer care by offering permanent cures to patients with historically untreatable malignancies. Yet policy and regulation must keep pace with rapidly advancing research to allow new treatments to be made available worldwide, said Carl June during the plenary address at Science Diplomacy 2017, the third annual conference by AAAS’ Center for Science Diplomacy. The conference was held on March 29 at AAAS headquarters in Washington.

The development of new drugs can be an extremely lengthy, costly, and frustrating process, with an estimated investment by pharmaceutical companies reaching as high as $2-4 billion over more than a decade to bring a drug to market, often with little guarantee of substantial return.