Reprogramming Cells to Fight Cancer

Instead of using conventional methods to treat cancer, doctors used an experimental method of engineering T cells to destroy cancer cells in leukaemia patients.

The cells are programmed to recognize CD19, a protein found on cancer and B cells. B cells create antibodies, and to make up for the ones that aren't being produced; doctors give patients infusions of antibodies.

The initial attempts to program the cells were not successful and generally had very little impact on the cancer. However, researchers got to the point that the T cells caused such an impact that a patient was required to be hospitalized due to the amount of dead cancer cells in his body.

I find it interesting how far cancer treatment has come. Instead of exhausting all possible options and still seeing no progress, an alternative has come up that could save that one or however many patients. While this treatment is still at the experimental phase, it is interesting to think how much more this method could develop to the point when it becomes an accepted method of treatment.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110810/full/news.2011.472.html