In what will hopefully be a major breakthrough, UK researchers have discovered that genetically modifying a patients white blood cells can turn them into potent cancer killers. As New Scientist reports, the team at the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research took blood samples from 10 patients with advanced bowel cancer and isolated their T-lymphocyte cells. They then genetically modified these cells to carry a gene that produces an antibody that recognizes a specific molecule on the surface of bowel cancer cells, allowing the T-cell to bind onto the cancer cell and trigger a chain of events that turn the T-cells into “killer cells”. The killer cells destroy the cancer cells by releasing a molecule called perforin that punches holes in the cancer cells’ walls. They also release chemical messengers called cytokines, which call in other immune cells to attack the cancer cells.
The technique has destroyed the cancer cells in every experiment so far, says team member Robert Hawkins, a medical oncologist. “What we’ve done is give our immune cells the equipment they need to recognize, home in on and destroy cells from tumours, allowing us to harness the power of the immune system.” Hawkins said the technique also helped fight the cancer by multiplying the patients’ white blood cells. “We would take maybe 10 million cells, expand them to 10 billion cells, and then return them to the patient.”
The new treatment will be tried in about 30 advanced bowel cancer patients, starting next year. Bowel cancer affects approximately 300,000 people in Europe and the US each year and is the second biggest cancer killer in the UK with over 16,000 deaths per year.