'Living Drug' That Fights Cancer By Harnessing The Immune System Clears Key Hurdle (npr.org)

An anonymous reader shares an NPR report: A new kind of cancer treatment that uses genetically engineered cells from a patient's immune system to attack their cancer easily cleared a crucial hurdle Wednesday. A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee unanimously recommended that the agency approve this "living drug" approach for children and young adults who are fighting a common form of leukemia. The agency doesn't have to follow the committee's recommendation but usually does. The treatment takes cells from a patient's body, modifies the genes, and then reinfuses those modified cells back into the person who has cancer. If the agency approves, it would mark the first time the FDA has approved anything considered to be a "gene therapy product." The treatment is part of one of the most important developments in cancer research in decades -- finding ways to harness the body's own immune system to fight cancer. And while it has generated much hope, there are some concerns about its safety over the long term -- and its cost.

Comments

The Next Generation of Immunotherapy Works

[byteCoder]

I'm living proof these sorts of immunotherapy treatments work: five years and still cancer-free. It's wonderful that the FDA may be on the brink of approving their use outside of trials.

I sought out and was admitted into a trial at NIH in 2012 to use a similar treatment for Stage IV melanoma.

In my trial, the researchers harvested my existing white blood cells and selected those that were able to recognize and attack the mutations present in my melanoma. Those cells were expanded to 130 billion in the lab and then re-infused into my body after my own immune system was killed off. In essence, my immune system was rebooted with white blood cells that could recognize and fight the cancer cells.

In theory, my body has been effectively immunized against the some of the cancerous mutations that my melanoma exhibited. I won't need any further treatment for my previous melanoma EVER.

I know fellow melanoma patients who were in related trials at NIH in which their harvested white cells were genetically engineered to express different proteins (like, IL-12 or IL-15 or NY/ESO) with similar success.

These novel cancer-fighting approaches are working. I'm happy that the FDA may actually be slowing adapting to the changing medical technology.