The human immune system—the powerful, complex network of cells that watches over and defends the body—just got a new weapon: autocorrect.

According to a report in Science, researchers were able to reverse an autoimmune disorder in mice by engineering certain healthy immune cells to weed out faulty ones. The method behind the treatment involves chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells and is identical to the method used in an experimental therapy for certain types of leukemias and lymphomas that has so far proven successful in some small human trials. While researchers will need to do much more work to prove that the strategy holds up against autoimmune disorders in humans, the authors argue that its track record of beating cancers is reason to be optimistic.

"Our study effectively opens up the application of this anti-cancer technology to the treatment of a much wider range of diseases, including autoimmunity and transplant rejection," coauthor Michael C. Milone, of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, said in a news release.

In those anti-cancer applications, engineered CAR T cells are used to fight off B cells that have become cancerous and are causing B cell-based leukemias or lymphomas. Normally, B cells are responsible for making antibodies, the Y-shaped proteins that detect germs and other invaders.

For the treatment, T cells are taken from a patient and genetically tweaked to contain an artificial detector—chimeric antigen receptor—that specifically singles out those cancerous B cells. Then researchers put the tweaked T cells back into the patient’s blood, where they track down and destroy the bad B cells.

Milone and colleagues realized this strategy might work for certain types of autoimmune disorders, particularly ones involving rogue B cells. They decided to test out the idea on a rare autoimmune disease called pemphigus vulgaris. In patients with this disease, faulty B cells pump out antibodies that attack a protein that helps skin and membrane cells stick together. The result is painful blistering in various places on the body and in the mouth and throat. The disease can be fatal without treatments, which often include powerful, immune-suppressing drugs that leave patients defenseless against life-threatening infections.

In cell experiments and in mice engineered to have the disease, CAR T cells were able to take out the faulty B cells while leaving the rest of the immune system intact. The treated mice survived and no longer developed blisters.

Next, Milone and his colleagues will test out the therapy in dogs, one of the few other animals that naturally get the disease. If the strategy holds up, they’ll move on to clinical trials and branch out to see what other autoimmune disorders CAR T cells might be able to treat.

Science, 2016. DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf6756 (About DOIs).