Engineered Immune Cells say DIE PROSTATE CANCER CELLS!! to Prostate Cancer Cells
Prostate cancer kills nearly 30,000 men in the US alone every year and the numbers of patients is rising. Though early detection is often considered the best treatment (the cancerous gland can be readily removed), the cancer can quickly metastasize to the rest of the body, prompting use of more drastic and dangerous treatments.
One of the newer such treatments involves using a virus to inject specific genes into the Killer T cells (the immune systems' bamf henchmen) to target remaining prostate cells in advanced cancer patients who had their prostate removed. The engineered Killer T cells can then recognize a membrane bound protein found only in prostate cells, called prostate-specific membrane antigen. Because the cancer is found in these cells, the theory is that the Killer Ts can effectively rid a patient of cells harboring the cancer. The researchers engineered about 1,000,000,000 of these T cells to inject back into their hosts, hoping their theory was correct.
After a few days, two of the clinical trial patients had strikingly reduced levels of cancer-markers in their blood, down 50% and 75% respectively, prompting a huge reaction from the field, and a call for further research. This treatment, it should be noted, is extremely dangerous, as the tinkered T cells (which, after injection into a body who has had their immune system wiped by chemotherapy, comprise most of the disease fighting force in the body) could start targeting other tissues such as healthy heart or liver tissues and things would become much greatlier bad. It is thus up to the researchers to 'perform due diligence to ... make sure there is no cross reactivity'.
Despite these worries, though, scientists are incredibly excited about the new field of personalized cell therapy, believing that more research will bring about the cure to any cancer through targetted approaches using engineered cancer-specific Killer T cells.
[Nathan Beck, Group A]
posted by PWH @ 1:32 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
This sounds like this could be a potentially great cure when the small kinks like targeting other tissues such as healthy heart or liver tissues which is kind of scary. Once more reserach is done sounds like a great cure for prostate cancer
Samantha DeBiasio
Wow! What a ground breaking discovery. Modern medicine never seems to stop shocking me with its new advances. Prostate cancer is a very dangerous type of cancer because it spreads so quickly, and while early detection is the best treatment, it is often hard to detect. This offers new hope to the men out there that have had their lives changed by prostate cancer. Hopefully they will be able to expand this to fight off different varieties of cancer.
-Calin Darabus
I like the idea of using virus's to help us out. It seems like a huge gamble pumping in tons of cells that may turn against you. How likely do they think that the T-cells might possibly turn on people?
-Nick Cline
Nice article, this seems like a branch of research that could potentially work really well once we figure it out. Also, why are rates of prostate cancer rising?
Nicholas Skvir
Really interesting article. Do you know the specifics on how they actually engineer these killer T cells? I'd be really curious to know what products go into creating such a cure.
- Maura Mulvey
wow that is great! Im always excited to hear that new research is being done to cure numerous types of cancer. However, I think that genetic engineering shouldnt be taken too far. Bad things happen when humans mess with nature. Lets hope nothing happens like in the movies.
-Katie Cyr
Do you think that something like this will be used for other cancers? Will this be used n prostate cancer pateints now? Why is prostate cancer so prevalent now? Do you know why cancers spread more rapidly than others? Nice blog!
-Alyson Paige
Given that the T-cells are derived from the person with the disease, I would think that the cross-reactivity is minimal if the technique is done correctly. But if you botch the engineering, you botch the treatment and risk death.
I would bet the rates of prostate cancer are going up because of increased exposure to chemicals in groundwater, air and close proximity to hazardous materials.
A virus lives by inserting copies of its RNA into another cells DNA, effectively programming it to make new copies of the virus. Scientists use this tendency to get the specific DNA (in this case, the programming to make the cell identify prostate cells) into the T-cells. So: they program the virus with the right DNA, plague-ize the T-cells to get the DNA inside and then reinject the engineered T-cells to kill the prostate cells.
Yes it will be used to treat other cancers. All that is needed are unique markers that the cancerous cells have (unique membrane bound proteins, chemical tags, ligands) and we can then use this T-cell technique for whatever.
Cancers are hugely complex - I am not well versed in it, but metastisism in part depends on the type of cancer (derived from the type of error in cell proliferation), where it is (proximity to blood vessels or in lymph tissue will mean a much more dangerous cancer with the ability metastisize), how much energy the cancer has access to (brain tissue receives a huge amount of energy, so any cancers near or in the brain will probably get some of it). Obviously there are hundreds more that can influence it, but I do not know of them.
[Nathan Beck, Group A]
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