Insights from ISCT 2026: The Golden Age of Cell and Gene Therapy

The International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy (ISCT) Annual Meeting, held in Dublin from May 6-9, brought together scientists, clinicians, regulators, and industry partners, all converging around a shared commitment to advancing cell and gene therapies from bench to bedside.

For our team, the conference was an opportunity to engage with the science first-hand, present our latest work, and see first-hand how the industry is shifting. Read below for our key scientific takeaways, highlights from our poster presentations, and reflections on what the conversations at ISCT mean for the road ahead.

What does “The Golden Age of Cell and Gene Therapy” really mean?

Several scientific and technological trends stood out across poster halls and exhibitor showcases.

This year’s conference carried a fitting theme, “The Golden Age of Cell and Gene Therapy,” a reflection of how far the field has traveled and a signal of where it’s heading next.

Just a decade ago, cell and gene therapies were largely theoretical: promising in the laboratory, but far from the clinic. Today, approved therapies are reaching patients through healthcare systems including the NHS, and the pipeline of candidates in clinical development has never been broader or more mature.

Reflecting on the meaning of this year’s theme, Karthikeyan Devaraju, Senior Scientist in R&D and Cell and Gene Therapy, explains:

“In my student days, this was still a dream. Coming from the neuroscience world, it was hard to believe you could put a gene or a cell into the brain and make it work. Now we’re seeing the evidence building that it does work and can improve people’s lives.”

Jonathan Caddick, Director of Business Development, feels similarly:

“Cell and gene therapy has gone from science fiction to science fact. We’re still at that forefront of discovery and there’s an element of optimism, because there are plenty of successes to focus on.”

Part of what makes this moment feel like a golden age is the alignment of forces that previously pulled in different directions. Regulators, developers, manufacturers, and laboratory partners have settled into a more coordinated dialogue, with clearer frameworks for what cell and gene therapies can achieve and for which indications.

Sophie New, Director of Business Development, explains:

“As a stem cell biologist/tissue engineer by trade, the bench to bedside translation was a daily discussion. Since those early days, with the increased collaboration between academia and industry, the number of approved cell and gene therapies has rocketed.”

Together, these advances signal not just a scientific high point but a turning point where innovation, collaboration, and technologies like AI are bringing cell and gene therapies closer to routine, accessible care for patients worldwide.

Three scientific themes that defined ISCT 2026

1. The shift from ex vivo to in vivo CAR-T therapies

Perhaps the most significant scientific shift visible at ISCT this year was the momentum building behind in vivo approaches to CAR-T-cell therapy. Traditionally, CAR-T manufacturing has relied on an ex vivo process. This approach works, but it is logistically intensive, expensive, and difficult to scale.

In vivo CAR-T therapy aims to bypass this by delivering the engineering machinery, often via viral vectors or lipid nanoparticles, directly into the patient’s body, where it targets and reprograms the appropriate cells in situ. Early-phase clinical data presented at ISCT suggest this approach is progressing beyond concept, with several trials already underway and more in planning across major pharmaceutical companies.

From a laboratory services perspective, this shift has important implications. As in vivo approaches progress through clinical development, the assays required to support these trials will need to evolve accordingly.

2. Expanding beyond oncology: autoimmune disease and beyond

For much of its history, cell and gene therapy has been associated primarily with oncology. ISCT 2026 signaled that this is changing. A dedicated full-day session on non-oncology indications, something uncommon in the context of CAR-T therapy, reflected just how far the field has broadened.

Autoimmune diseases have emerged as a particularly compelling area, with early clinical data showing encouraging results and a rapidly expanding body of research. But the expansion does not stop there. Researchers are exploring CAR-based approaches in neurodegenerative disease, metabolic conditions, and other indications that would have seemed far-fetched even a few years ago.

Running alongside this scientific ambition is an urgent practical question: current therapies reach only a small fraction of those who could benefit. Expanding access through simpler manufacturing, lower cost, and improved logistics is becoming as important a priority as developing the therapies themselves.

3. Regulation is keeping pace, including new rigor around clinical trial standards

A recurring theme across sessions was the evolving regulatory environment. Far from being a brake on progress, regulators are increasingly active partners in shaping the field’s development. The FDA’s recent move to request randomized controlled clinical trial data for CAR-T therapies, which was previously a rare expectation in this space, reflects a maturing relationship between innovators and oversight bodies.

For laboratory partners, this trajectory matters. As trial standards become more rigorous and more standardized, the quality, reproducibility, and documentation of analytical data become even more important.

Poster highlights: Advancing the science of CAR-T monitoring

ISCT was also a chance to contribute to science, not only to observe it. Karthikeyan presented two posters reflecting our ongoing work in genomic testing for cell and gene therapy.

Navigating Viral Integration Landscapes with CRISPR-Cas9 and Long-Read Sequencing

The first poster focused on our approach to vector integration site analysis (VIS/ISA), a critical safety and characterization tool for gene-modified cell therapies, which examines where viral vectors have integrated within a patient’s genome.

Our methodology uses long-read sequencing, which offers several advantages over short-read approaches. It’s PCR-free, meaning it avoids amplification biases that can skew results; it captures the full vector sequence rather than just the flanking genomic regions; and it’s able to detect structural variants that shorter reads may miss.

This capability supports both product safety assessments and patient safety monitoring, making it a versatile tool for sponsors developing CAR-T or other gene-modified cell therapies.

View the poster >

Scalable, Reliable Recovery of Intact DNA from Lymphodepleted Samples for CAR-T Vector Analysis

The second poster addressed a practical but fundamental challenge in CAR-T clinical trials: obtaining reliable genomic data from the limited cells in blood samples that characterize the early post-infusion window.

Following lymphodepletion, the remaining cells are scarce, and the sample matrix can inhibit standard analytical techniques. Yet it is precisely at this point that tracking the engineered cells is most important for understanding pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics.

We have developed and validated a semi-automated DNA extraction process capable of delivering clean, high-quality genomic material from as little as 100 microliters of blood, consistently and reproducibly across clinical sample types. This enables downstream sequencing and PCR-based assays to perform reliably even under the challenging conditions typical of early-phase CAR-T studies.

View the poster >

Looking ahead: What do the next 12 months hold?

As cell and gene therapy becomes more mainstream, the demands placed on every part of the ecosystem, including laboratory services, will intensify. Clinical trials will become larger, more complex, and more geographically distributed. Assays will need to keep pace with novel modalities and new indications. The standards applied to analytical data will only become more rigorous.

Karthikeyan’s view for the next 12 months is simple: “We need to ensure cell and gene therapy is available for as many patients as possible, and the indications are getting broader. Let’s keep working together to ensure clinical trials are a success and therapies become marketed products.”

It’s a reminder that the golden age of cell and gene therapy is not the story of a single company or a single technology. It’s the story of an entire field working together.

Interested in how Cerba Research can support your cell and gene therapy clinical program? Get in touch to discuss our genomics, flow cytometry, and clinical laboratory capabilities for CAR-T and other advanced therapy medicinal products.