Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) technology is having a huge impact in the blood malignancy field and is becoming a well-established therapy for many types of leukaemia. In recent decades, efforts have been made to demonstrate that CAR-T cells have potential as a therapy to achieve a sterilizing cure for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. However, translation of this technology to the HIV scenario has not been easy, as many challenges have appeared along the way that hinder the consolidation of CAR-T cells as a putative therapy. Here, we review the origin and development of CAR-T cells, describe the advantages of CAR-T cell therapy in comparison with other therapies, and describe the major obstacles currently faced regarding application of this technology in the HIV field, specifically, viral escape, CAR-T cell infectivity, and accessibility to hidden reservoirs. Nonetheless, promising results in successfully tackling some of these issues that have been obtained in clinical trials suggest a bright future for CAR-T cells as a consolidated therapy.
Keywords: CAR-T cells; HIV; HIV reservoir; chimeric antigen receptor; immunotherapy; latency reversal agents.