Q&A with Jingyu Zhao: In Vivo CAR T Cell Engineering for More Effective, Affordable Cancer Treatment
January 26, 2026Jingyu Zhao, a PhD student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is researching how to improve chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy, a powerful treatment for blood cancers.
The moment Jingyu Zhao knew for sure she wanted to be a scientist happened while sitting in a seminar during her master’s degree training.
An image popped up on the screen that she will never forget. A mouse with a human ear structure on its back. The scientists explained how they hoped to use their research to help reconstruct facial or cranial structures for people with severe injuries.
“It’s not just the experiment or the data, it’s actually the real story of how science can improve people’s quality of life,” she said.
Zhao, now a PhD student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, received a 2025 PhRMA Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship in Drug Discovery for her research to improve chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy, a powerful treatment for blood cancers that works by reprogramming a patient’s own T cells to find and kill cancer cells.
However, the process of extracting the patient’s T cells, modifying them in a lab, and then reinjecting them into the patient is complicated, time-consuming, and expensive. Zhao aims to simplify this process by creating CAR T cells directly inside the patient using viruses specially engineered to safely deliver the CAR gene to the patient’s T cells. If successful, this approach could make CAR T cell therapy more accessible and affordable for patients.
Learn more about Zhao and her research in this video.
