1. being more-effective tumor responses.
2. the targeted nature of CRISPR-mediated CAR integration into the genome might "prove safer than random integration, which carries the potential risk of generating a harmful mutation," Dr. Maus wrote.
3. It could enable off-the-shelf CAR T cells to be made that need not come from a patient's own T cells. This would enable easier and cheaper manufacture of CAR T cells.

New gene-editing technologies will likely lead to rapid improvement in antigen-targeted T-cell immunotherapies for cancer.

David Edgell, an associate professor of biochemistry at the University of Western Ontario, thinks CRISPR treatments could be available within the next two to three years, with modified T-cells used to treat some types of cancer (there are already clinical trials for lung cancer in China, and a similar one slated to take place at the University of Pennsylvania was approved last June by the National Institutes of Health