An Immune System Trained to Kill Cancer

ack

VIP/Donor & WBF Founding Member
May 6, 2010
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ack

VIP/Donor & WBF Founding Member
May 6, 2010
6,774
1,198
580
Boston, MA
Sorry to hear about your losses. A new trend of _potential_ treatment is emerging, that of genetically modified viruses or immune-system cells, then injecting them in order to multiply and thrive in one's body and kill cancel cells. I think this is just brilliant...
 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator

ack

VIP/Donor & WBF Founding Member
May 6, 2010
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Boston, MA
Quite amazing to think that what they did literally debulked the entire tumor.

True, but what about the broken DNA? At least these methods have the promise of always killing the types of cancer cells designed to kill, though on the othehand theoretically still leaving the door open for metastasis, if the cancer cells have already infected other healthy tissue, no?
 

docvale

Well-Known Member
Mar 21, 2011
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Briarcliff Manor, NY
True, but what about the broken DNA?

What do you mean with broken DNA? Mutated DNA from the cancer cells? If yes, as the cancer cell dies, its DNA is cleared as well.

At least these methods have the promise of always killing the types of cancer cells designed to kill, though on the othehand theoretically still leaving the door open for metastasis, if the cancer cells have already infected other healthy tissue, no?

Not really.
Since the discovery of the immunosurveilance, that is the ability of the immune system to kill cells that are transforming into cancer (if it didn't existed, we all would have lots of tumors), scientists have tried to trigger the immune response to treat cancer. At the very base, it's the same concept of the paper here in discussion (despite here the immune system has been engineered to be cancer specific). The immune cells have the ability to operate in seek-and-destroy mode, so they would look also for metastatic lesions.
The problem, instead, is that usually the cancer cells rapidly change their antigenic profile: this means that, at the eyes of the immune system, they change their face and get rapidly not recognizable. That's why all the approaches to trigger immunosurveilance, till now, failed. Probably the case of the B-lymphocytic chronic leukemia is that it's a disease with very slow growth and aggressiveness, so the ability to "change face" is reduced or minimal.
 

ack

VIP/Donor & WBF Founding Member
May 6, 2010
6,774
1,198
580
Boston, MA
Thanks, nice write-up and encouraging too.
 

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