The treatment options for newly diagnosed and relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) have substantially improved over the last 5 years. However, even though novel targeted agents (e.g. venetoclax, IDH1/2 and novel FLT-3 inhibitors; cytosolic isocitrate dehydrogenase 1/2 and fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 inhibitor) and improved chemotherapeutics (e.g. CPX-351; liposomale Daunorubicin/ Cytarabine) are entering clinics, physicians are still confronted with high relapse and treatment failure rates. Thus, novel new strategies are required to improve AML therapy. Application of genetically engineered T cells (i.e. chimeric antigen receptor T cells, CART cells) has proven to be highly effective in B cellderived neoplasia and early data suggest also a high potential in the treatment of AML. This short review highlights the current approaches but also limitations of CART cell therapy in AML precluding their current routine clinical use. Among a plethora of problems to be overcome, a critical issue will be to find relatively selective actionable targets in AML. Keywords Relapsed/refractory AML • CD123 • CD33 • CD135 • TCR-C4 CAR transgenic T cells have led to impressive clinical results in treating patients with relapsed and refractory B cell leukemia and lymphoma [1-3]. To date,