Genetic Engineers Working to Reverse Cancer

An anonymous reader writes "Using a patient's own modified white blood cells, a team of researchers at the National Cancer Institute has reversed advanced melanoma in a study of 17 patients. The researchers tweaked the blood to recognize and attack cancer cells, and the head of the National Institutes of Health, Elias Zerhounibut, says there's big hope now that other common cancers, like breast and lung cancer, can be similarly treated. Though only 2 of the 17 patients responded successfully to the treatment, researchers are optimistic that future improvements on the technique will improve that rate of success." From the article: "In the study, Rosenberg and his colleagues took lymphocytes from the blood and inserted into them genes for a receptor capable of 'recognizing' a protein on melanoma cells called MART-1. This would allow the lymphocyte to attach to a tumor cell and kill it. The patients, all of whom had previously undergone surgery and immune-based treatments, got chemotherapy to temporarily wipe out their immune systems. The engineered cells were then reinjected, with the hope they would proliferate as the immune system recovered."

Comments

Oh noes, look out!

[rmadmin]

Better look out, mother nature is going to take you to court for violating the DMCA when you reverse engineer her cancer.

bbc has more info

[legoburner]

The BBC also has more info about the procedure.

For Mark Origer, 53, the treatment completely eliminated his skin cancer and another tumour on his liver shrunk enough that it could be removed surgically. Last week, doctors pronounced him completely clear of cancer cells.
Another man, aged 39, was able to clear the cancer that had spread to his liver, lymph nodes and lung.

Always nice to see the light of science burning brighter and any treatments that can get rid of cancer that has spread to the liver are pretty amazing.

Using the body's immune system

[PIPBoy3000]

These days, it seems that some of the more promising cancer treatments involve using the body's own defenses against cancer. The antiangiogenesis stuff didn't pan out as well as hoped (blocking blood vessel growth in tumors). Some of the treatments that fix a particular genetic defect in certain types of cancer are great, but extremely cancer-specific.

This approch does require a lot of work (tailoring a particular patient's T-cells to a particular cancer), so it's not a cheap fix. It also requires the patient's immune system to cooperate and do it's thing, something that only happened in 2 of the 17 patients. Still, to get complete remission where there was no hope is extremely promising. My guess is that we'll see more of this.

Basically if the human race can do two things: 1) Regrow organs that have worn out and 2) cure cancer, we'll live for a very long time.

Re:Using the body's immune system

[brewer13210]

Although only 2 of 17 patients recovered, if this was an initial human trial, then all the scientists were looking for was toxicity effects in people who were otherwise pretty much beyond any other medical treatment. i.e. people with cancer so advanced, that a treatment like this probably wouldn't make them any worse.

Hopefully when this method of treating cancer is applied to people whose tumors are not so advanced, the results will be far more effective.

Re:Using the body's immune system

[LiberalApplication]

Basically if the human race can do two things: 1) Regrow organs that have worn out and 2) cure cancer, we'll live for a very long time.

Meaninglessly, unless we can determine the mechanisms of senility and treat/prevent them. Personally, I'd love to live forever, but only if I can be guaranteed to not become a crazy old coot who thinks his toothbrush is stealing money from his wallet while he sleeps.

Abstract

[xanthines-R-yummy]

Here's the absctract for the original article. Unfortunately, you have to be a subscriber to see the whole thing.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/112 9003v1

I thought it was interesting how the lymphocytes stuck around for about a year. I thought they would have either died or kicked the gene out by then...

Elias Zerhouni

[blakestah]

Elias Zerhouni may be a little miffed at being called Zerhounibut!

My heart goes out to them.

[LoyalOpposition]

The description of the patients is very dry, so I wanted to say something on behalf of the people receiving this treatment. What's happened is that each one started getting symptoms, probably a growth on the skin. They went to a doctor and were told that they had the most malignant of the three forms of skin cancer. Treatment options were presented to them, and they chose to undergo surgery. Either a few days after the surgery they were told that the margins weren't clean, or immediately after the surgery they were told that portions of cancer were inoperable, or some weeks later they were told that the cancer had returned. Then they underwent immune therapy. I don't know anything about that. Finally, they were told that they were terminal patients and to get their affairs in order, but that there was a new therapy the surgeons wanted to try. The chances of success were unknown. I don't know how much chemotherapy was necessary to destroy their immune systems, but a very good friend of mine, now dead, described it as getting flu one day a week for weeks on end. I count at least six events that had to be completely emotionally devastating to the patients and their families.

-Loyal

NCI has even more

[xanthines-R-yummy]

http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/pressreleases/Mel anomaGeneTherapy

This is the interesting part, I thought: "The researchers also have isolated TCRs that recognize common cancers other than melanoma."