LF: Genetically modified blood turned into 'living drug' in stunning new therapy that hunts down and destroys diseased cells and prevents them from returning

Title: Genetically modified blood turned into 'living drug' in stunning new therapy that hunts down and destroys diseased cells and prevents them from returning - possibly FOREVER
Source: Daily Mail Online
URL Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a ... -cells-prevents-returning.html
Published: Feb 16, 2016
Author: Fiona Macrae, Science Editor For The Dai
Post Date: 2016-02-16 08:29:08 by cranky
Keywords: None
Views: 2429
Comments: 17

A revolutionary treatment that could stop cancer from ever coming back is close to becoming widely available, scientists said yesterday.

Dubbed a ‘living drug’, it will act in a similar way to a vaccine, by being constantly alert for the disease returning.

T-cell immunotherapy hit headlines last year when British baby Layla Richards became one of the first people in the world to be given the treatment, which is made from the body’s own cells.

One suggests it will last for at least 14 years in the body, raising the tantalising prospect of a permanent cure for cancer.

In the other, 94 per cent of terminally ill patients saw the disease vanish completely.

The ‘extraordinary’ results – seen in so-called ‘liquid’ cancers such as leukaemia rather than those that form solid tumours – are ‘unprecedented in medicine’, the world’s biggest science conference heard.

The treatment is created from T-cells – white blood cells that normally fight off viruses and bacteria – which are removed from the patient and genetically tweaked to recognise and attack their cancer.

The genetically-modified cells are then grown in their millions in a lab before being infused back into the patient, where they hunt down and destroy the cancer cells.

Scientists around the world are perfecting the technique, and a series of trials have shown it to have remarkable potential.

Some of the most exciting results come from the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan, where doctors gave ten patients infusions of T-cells and watched how long they lasted in the body.

One type of T-cell survived for 14 years, the conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science heard.

Dr Bonini said these cells may last for life. If they were also genetically engineered to hunt out and destroy cancer, they would patrol the body year after year and stop it from ever returning.

She likened the therapy to a vaccine that gives protection for life against an infection, adding: ‘T-cells are a living drug and they have the potential to persist in our body for our whole lives.

'Our findings have profound implications for the design of T-cell-based immunotherapies.’

Dr Bonini said patients were ‘very close’ to the first treatments becoming widely available.'

T-cell immunotherapy is created from T-cells bottom left in left image) – white blood cells that normally fight off viruses and bacteria. These are removed from the patient and genetically tweaked to recognise and attack their cancer. The genetically-modified cells are then grown in their millions in a lab before being infused back into the patient, where they hunt down cancer cells (right)

Professor Daniel Davis, a Manchester University expert on the immune system, described the study as ‘an important advance’.

He said: ‘The implication is that infusing genetically-modified versions of these particular T-cells could provide a long-lasting immune response. Immunotherapy has great potential to revolutionise cancer treatments and this study shows which type of T-cells might be especially useful to manipulate.’

A second study, also presented at the conference in Washington DC, reinforced the potential of T-cell immunotherapy.

When scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle gave genetically-modified T-cells to leukaemia patients with months to live, the cancer disappeared in 94 per cent of cases. Patients with other blood cancers saw response rates of greater than 80 per cent, with more than half experiencing complete remission.

Researcher Dr Stanley Riddell said: ‘These are patients that have failed [every other treatment].

‘Most patients in our trial would be projected to have two to five months to live.

'This is extraordinary... unprecedented in medicine to get response rates in this range in these very advanced patients.

BABY GIRL'S MIRACLE RECOVERY

Hope: Layla Richards had the treatment last year

Little Layla Richards was given a T-cell treatment so experimental it had only been tested on mice.

The baby, from north London, had one of the worst cases of leukaemia her doctors had seen, and when all other therapies failed, her parents were told to expect the worst.

But they refused to give up and, last summer, when Layla was one, doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital gave her an infusion of 50million cells genetically engineered to hunt and kill her cancer.

Her mother Lisa Foley, 27, said: ‘We didn’t want to accept palliative care and so we asked doctors to try anything for our daughter, even if it hadn’t been tried before.’

Father Ashleigh Richards, 30, added: ‘It was scary to think the treatment had never been used in a human before but even with the risks there was no doubt we wanted to try.’

The treatment wiped out Layla’s cancer. It is too early to say she is cured, but doctors have described her recovery as a ‘near miracle’.

‘We have a long way to go. The response is not always durable, some of these patients do relapse … but the early data is unprecedented.’

Professor Dirk Busch, a T-cell researcher at the Technical University of Munich, said: ‘We have now for the first time genetically engineered T-cells in patients.

‘A couple of years ago, nobody would have expected that they would work so nicely, that they would survive so nicely. That opens the door for getting more creative and making better cells.’

The treatment is not without its challenges, including side-effects that can be severe and even fatal. Success so far has been in leukaemia and other ‘liquid’ cancers, rather than prostate, breast and other tumours that form lumps.

Getting T-cells deep inside solid tumours will be difficult. Cost is also an issue, as the treatment is tailored to individual patients.

She stressed that it ‘doesn’t yet work for all patients … we still need more results from more trials … but there’s a lot of hope this type of therapy could save lives’.

But if it is succesfull it is given to private interests so they can profit and claim moral credit