In patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, researchers have found a way to turn cells in the patients’ own immune system into cancer-fighting machines. In a new study, researchers injected patients with a drug that helped immune cells attach themselves to tumor cells. The study saw considerable improvement in only 11 of the 38 patients in this preliminary trial, but researchers say the results are significant because all seven of the patients who received the highest dose of medication saw their tumors shrink. In four cases, the tumors completely vanished.
The new results are the latest promising finding in the developing field of immunotherapy, in which the body’s own defenses are augmented and then unleashed to fight back disease. Researchers are also investigating ways to train the immune system to attack brain cancer tumors, and in June doctors announced that a patient with advanced skin cancer was free of the disease two years after they injected him with billions of his own immune cells [Telegraph].
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Researchers say they have turned a tobacco plant into a living factory that can produce individualized vaccines to fight a type of cancer known as follicular lymphoma. While similar vaccines have been grown inside animal cells, researchers say this new process is quicker and less expensive, and could carry less risk to the patient, as animal cells might hold unknown viruses [BBC News].
In the new technique, researchers took biopsies from each lymphoma patient and isolated the gene that produces tumor-fighting antibodies, which is slightly different in each person. In each case, they then used a genetically engineered tobacco virus to bring the gene into a tobacco plant, where the plant responded by turning out antibodies. One week later the tobacco leaves were picked and ground into pulp, and the antibodies were extracted. These antibodies are put into a patient newly-diagnosed with the disease, to “prime” the body’s immune system to attack any cell carrying them. If successful, this would mean the body would then recognise and destroy the lymphoma cells [BBC News].
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