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posted by on Friday April 10 2015, @02:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the patient-heal-thyself dept.

Scientists at Juno Therapeutics reported that their chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy put 24 of 27 adults with refractive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) into remission, with six patients remaining disease free for more than a year. This response rate is unprecedented for patients who had stopped responding to all other treatments.

In persons with ALL, lymphoblasts are overproduced in the bone marrow and continuously multiply, causing damage and death by inhibiting the production of normal cells.

This disease is extremely hard to treat and progresses rapidly when it becomes refractory (resistant); most patients die within a few months.

CAR T-cell therapies are cell therapy, gene therapy, and immuno-therapy all at the same time.

From The Scientist:

The premise is simple: extract a patient’s T cells from blood and "train" them to recognize and kill cancer by modifying them with a viral vector to express an artificial receptor specific for a particular cancer, then reinfuse the cells back into the patient.

[More after the break.]

The "chimeric" (genetically distinct) T cells thus created, are very specific to that one particular form of cancer, and do not occur naturally. They are manufactured from the patients own T-cells.

CAR T-Cell therapy seems to have burst on scene suddenly, with many major pharmaceutical companies jumping on the bandwagon, but it has been a long time in coming. First developed in the late 80s, simple CAR-T Cells consisted of a modular design, in three parts:

  • the bespoke cancer-targeting antibody located on the outside of the t-cell,
  • transmembrane component (bridging the T-cell's membrane, and
  • an intracellular co-stimulatory signaling mechanism.

The first attacks the cancer cell, the second triggers internal processes in the T-Cell, and the third recruits other T-cells to join the battle.

Newer versions tack on multiple co-stimulation mechanisms inside the T-Cell, counteracting the cancer cell's ability to shut down immune signaling.

Each T-Cell is currently custom made for each patient, using virus techniques to bundle the components into the T-cells. However other researchers are experimenting with cheaper and faster methods of packaging additional signaling mechanisms into T-cells using electric currents.

 
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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2015, @02:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2015, @02:59PM (#168757)

    Very cool! It is great to see so much promise for treating non-solid tumors. Hopefully some make it out of the lab. And, hopefully some of what is being learned is applicable to solid tumors as well.

    Having been through a couple years of chemo myself, I now realize that cancer treatment hasn't really progressed much in the last 30 years. I've been on several regimens, and all have been around with only minor tweaking (of the combinations) for decades, and none are all that effective.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Joe on Friday April 10 2015, @07:33PM

    by Joe (2583) on Friday April 10 2015, @07:33PM (#168819)

    The science will get there. T cells already have the capability to infiltrate tumors, which can be good or bad depending on the context.

    Oncolytic viruses (viruses that preferentially replicate in cancer cells) seem to be better for solid tumors, so that is a technology to keep an eye on.

    - Joe

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncolytic_virus [wikipedia.org]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2015, @05:20AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2015, @05:20AM (#168899)

      Thanks!

  • (Score: 2) by Geotti on Saturday April 11 2015, @03:27PM

    by Geotti (1146) on Saturday April 11 2015, @03:27PM (#168965) Journal

    cancer treatment hasn't really progressed much in the last 30 years

    Yeah, this. It feels like we're in the middle ages. And if you're one of the relative few that just can't take chemo, you're out of luck. Where's my nano-bots that I infuse into my body and then play shoot-em-up through an oculus rift or something? But this sure seems like a vector at least worthy of the 21st century.