At the 2014 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting, Prof Anton Hagenbeek (Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands) discusses recent investigational advances in chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapy for haematological malignancies, including refractory acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, follicular lymphoma).