12/12/2025
Did you catch Alyssa and her dog Holly on BBC Breakfast this morning? 📺
As you know, we love Alyssa, who was the world’s first person to receive a pioneering new treatment developed with funding from Blood Cancer UK.
At 13, she thought her blood cancer was incurable, but now she’s living a normal teenage life, with her dog Holly, taking part in the Duke of Edinburgh award and studying for her A-levels.
It's thanks to scientists at Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College London who have published new results that show the growing potential of CAR T-cell therapy for people with aggressive T-cell leukaemia.
They tested a new treatment called BE-CAR7, which uses gene editing to change donor immune cells so they can find and destroy cancer. It’s different from standard CAR T-cell therapy because the cells used come from a healthy donor instead of the patient.
This study built on previous work that Blood Cancer UK helped fund, and as a charity we’re proud our work helped make this possible.
All those who had the treatment had T-cell leukaemia, a blood cancer, which had stopped responding to treatment. 82% reached deep remission, and could move onto a stem cell transplant.
This work is vital, as leukaemia is the most common childhood cancer. And these results give a powerful new option for people with aggressive T-cell leukaemia, especially when standard treatments stopped working ❤️
