GM Blood Kills Human Cancer Cells

adri writes "New Scientist has an article which outlines an interesting method of combating cancer: genetically modifying T-cells in human blood to seek and destroy bowel cancer cells."

Comments

What else?

[Anonymous Coward]

genetically modifying T-cells in human blood to seek and destroy bowel cancer cells.

And what else does it kill, I wonder?

cool

[capnjack41]

Wow, I just realized that GM isn't General Motors, and that the April Fools' jokes are over!

But since cancer cells are (as I understand it, I'm not all that knowledgeable about this) caused by "genetic modifications" in themselves, how do we know (as someone said) that these don't have adverse effects in themselves?

However I suppose that if I did have this condition, I'd be willing to try...

Another bullet in the treatment arsenal?

[geekwench]

Good lord, I hope so.

This is exciting research, and just the sort of thing that GM should be used for. If the researchers can add the necessary information to white blood cells so that they recognize cancer cells as "foreign", and respond accordingly, then we might see a future in which the cure isn't worse than the disease. Chemo and radiation are both damned indiscriminate, and there's an upper limit to how much of either can be administered to a person. Tweaking white blood cells so that they do their job more effectively would be a far better answer, since they wouldn't attack healthy tissue.

Not only does this show promise for cancer (it's being used on bowel cancers, but I can see more widespread applications), the findings could prove useful in the future treatment of autoimmune disorders. I'm very much looking forward to the developments that are going to come out of this line of research.

The problem is...

[Ieshan]

"Tweaking white blood cells so that they do their job more effectively would be a far better answer, since they wouldn't attack healthy tissue."

Right, sure, that sounds very good on paper. The problem is, T cells work by recognizing surface antigens present on certain cells and not on others, or the absence of certain key antigens. I think autoimmune issues will be the *first* to occur - we're teaching someone's T cells how to kill cells in his own body, granted, cells that have been mutated in some way, but still.

I'm not so sure this will work in vivo as well as it has in vitro. :-\

Re:The problem is...

[geekwench]

If I'm reading the article correctly, what the researchers are attempting to do is nothing more than step up the T-cells' normal function. They already go after disease pathogens, and there is a certain amount of evidence that they behave the same way towards cancerous cells in the same way that they do any other "foreign body." For reasons unknown, some rogue cells slip through the defenses and proliferate beyond the immune system's capabilities to fight the disease. Since the T-cells being use are being harvested from the patient, the risks of autoimmune responses being triggered should be minimized, since the "self/not self" coding is already in place. And, as Suidae said in the above post, T-cells have a limited lifespan, so the potential harm is minimized further.

I see a great deal of promise here. I don't know if you've ever been around someone recieving conventional cancer treatments, but I have. When I say that "the cure can be worse than the disease", that's not mere speculation; it's a direct quote from someone who - irony of ironies - didn't feel sick until her cancer was diagnosed and she started treatment. She felt just fine before the chemo and radiation. Three years later, she's cancer-free, but still having health problems caused by the lingering after-effects of the treatments. IMNSHO, anything that leads to a way of curing cancer without half-killing the patient is worth pursuing.

Re:The problem is...

[Ieshan]

Well, part of the "secret" of how cancer cells slip by immune system responses deals with their mutation from normal, working human cells.

Cell surface antigens are very complicated, but suffice it to say, they're somewhat unique based on a variety of different factors (a similar analogy: people can't recieve blood from other "types", the "types" being different "types" of a specific surface antigens).

Since cancer cells arise from mutated cells, there might not be a marked difference in surface antigens on the cells - and that's why the immune system fails to realize the mishap. It's a bit like this: Suppose you were to put one blue marble in a jar of yellow marbles and tell someone to pick it out by the way it "felt" different. T-cells aren't capable of seeing the big picture, they only focus on specific chemical reactions - namely, recognition of foreign bodies through foreign antigens and their destruction.

AIDS works in a similar way - fooling T cells into "missing" infected cells and virus particles as foreign bodies in the system. My concern is that fooling with T-cells is an awful risk in terms of autoimmune disorder - no matter how fast cancer kills you, autoimmune disorders can do irreparable damage in a relatively short amount of time. I hope the research, when it finally progresses into human trials, is so safe that they don't have to worry about this sort of thing.

I like Geron's teqnique better

[Anonymous Coward]

Geron is working on a way to target 90% of cancer cells by homing in on there need for the enzyme "telomerase".

From what I can gather, the enzyme is necessary for splitting the DNA strands to prep for Cell division. Embryos and Cancer cells that are doing this continuously have lots of it. Adult cells do not. So by hunting for this enzyme in Adults you target cancer cells no matter what kind they are.

I'm not sure if the treatment supresses the enzyme or if an anti-body has been developed wich targets the cells expressing the enzyme.

I'm guessing that a side effect may be sterility for males since the rapid creation of Sperm cells also involves the enzyme.

Either way it sounds pretty cool and doesn't involve GM of cells in your body.

Phase I testing is being done at Duke Universty against Prostate cancer.