cancers Review Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR)-Modified Immune Effector Cell Therapy for Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) Utkarsh H. Acharya 1,2,* and Roland B. Walter 3,4,5,6 1 Divisions of Hematologic Malignancies & Immune Effector Cell Therapy, Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02215, USA 2 Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA 3 Clinical Research Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA;
[email protected] 4 Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA 5 Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA 6 Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +1-857-215-0396 Received: 12 November 2020; Accepted: 1 December 2020; Published: 3 December 2020 Simple Summary: Adoptive cell transfer with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-modified immune effector cells (IECs) has quickly emerged as a paradigm-shifting approach for the management of B cell malignancies given its ability to induce high rates of remission. This is reflected by the regulatory approval of three CD19-directed CAR T cell products to date for the treatment of several non-Hodgkin lymphomas and pediatric/young adult B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL). While fueled by this success, the use of CAR-modified IECs in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is still in its infancy, with recognized challenges involving the selection of suitable target antigens, immune resistance due to a hostile tumor microenvironment, and potentially fatal toxicity to normal cells, in particular hematopoietic cells.