James Gerson, M.D., director of the CAR T-Cell Program at the University of Vermont Medical Center and assistant professor of medicine at UVM’s Larner College of Medicine

(FEBRUARY 28, 2023) James Gerson, M.D., director of the CAR T-Cell Program at the University of Vermont Medical Center and assistant professor of medicine at UVM’s Larner College of Medicine, told the (Plattsburgh, N.Y.) Press-Republican that CAR T-cell therapy, a novel, highly effective form of blood cancer treatment now available at the UVM Cancer Center, “has completely changed the lives of many patients who have received it.”

The therapy uses the body’s own immune system to fight cancer by retrieving a patient’s own T cells, genetically modifying them to attack cancer cells, and putting them back into the patient.

Gerson came to the UVM Cancer Center in September 2022 from the University of Pennsylvania, where CAR T-cell therapy was first discovered and developed. He worked directly with the team of researchers who created the therapy, led by Carl H. June, M.D., and was among the first clinicians to use it in a commercial setting.

“It’s unlike any other therapy that’s ever been given before,” Gerson says. “This therapy is a living, breathing treatment that goes back into the patient and lives with them for years. It’s exciting to be starting a new CAR T-cell program here at UVM, and to offer this potentially curative therapy to patients in the region.”