by Donald Douglas
I love this story, at the New York Times, "In Girls Last Hope, Altered Immune Cells Beat Leukemia": http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/h...mia-using-altered-t-cells.html?pagewanted=all
RTWT.
With a similar story here. Genetically Engineered T-Cells Rescue Another Leukemia Patient : 80beats
I love this story, at the New York Times, "In Girls Last Hope, Altered Immune Cells Beat Leukemia": http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/h...mia-using-altered-t-cells.html?pagewanted=all
PHILIPSBURG, Pa. Emma Whitehead has been bounding around the house lately, practicing somersaults and rugby-style tumbles that make her parents wince.
It is hard to believe, but last spring Emma, then 6, was near death from leukemia. She had relapsed twice after chemotherapy, and doctors had run out of options.
Desperate to save her, her parents sought an experimental treatment at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, one that had never before been tried in a child, or in anyone with the type of leukemia Emma had. The experiment, in April, used a disabled form of the virus that causes AIDS to reprogram Emmas immune system genetically to kill cancer cells.
The treatment very nearly killed her. But she emerged from it cancer-free, and about seven months later is still in complete remission. She is the first child and one of the first humans ever in whom new techniques have achieved a long-sought goal giving a patients own immune system the lasting ability to fight cancer.
My god that is so wonderful. Research is closing in on a cure, or so it seems. And that's in American hospitals, it should be noted.
RTWT.
With a similar story here. Genetically Engineered T-Cells Rescue Another Leukemia Patient : 80beats