A Breakthrough Against Leukemia Using Altered T-Cells

[longknife]

by Donald Douglas

I love this story, at the New York Times, "In Girl’s 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 Children’s 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 Emma’s 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 patient’s 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

 

[Old Rocks]

That is wonderful. The ability to engineer genetics is just started. I really hope this is one more big step to cure most cancer.

 

[whitehall]

It's a good thing to use legitimate experimental medical procedures on people who are diagnosed with certain fatal diseases with permission from the patient or the legal guardian. I just hope the ambulance chasing legal profession doesn't make a career out of suing the experiments that don't work.

 

[ScienceRocks]

I'd much rather have a Manhattan project to end Cancer and Heart disease. Now that doesn't mean I'm against developing a battery that's 5 times as good as todays...I just feel that life would be improved more by this.

 

[whitehall]

I'd much rather have a Manhattan project to end Cancer and Heart disease. Now that doesn't mean I'm against developing a battery that's 5 times as good as todays...I just feel that life would be improved more by this.

An experimental procedure has a temporary positive effect on a poor kid and all of a sudden we dream of "ending cancer and heart disease". Government funding is OK but often the government bureaucrats that control the funding ain't got a clue and the money goes for salaries and jobs and becomes a gigantic industry that accomplishes little or nothing. If an honest politician comes along and wants to take a look at the taxpayer funding the blackmail starts and he (or she) is accused of being callus and uncaring.

 

[waltky]

Leukemia's origins tracked back to the womb...

Scientists track leukaemia's origins 'back to the womb'
8 April 2013 - Scientists say they have traced the root genetic cause of leukaemia back to early life in the womb.

The Institute of Cancer Research experts analysed the entire three billion letter sequence of DNA-coding in identical twins to reveal what sets off the disease. They hope the findings, published in PNAS journal, could lead to new drugs to fight the condition at source. Leukaemia is the most common cancer diagnosed in children. It affects a third of young cancer sufferers and kills 100 children a year in the UK. The twins studied by the researchers had the most common form of leukaemia that affects children - acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) which is a cancer of the white blood cells. It is already known that multiple faulty genes are linked to the condition and that environmental factors probably act as triggers along the way. But the precise sequence of events leading up to a diagnosis of ALL is unclear.

Root cause

The researchers wanted to find out more about the disease so that, ultimately, a better treatment could be found. Although ALL is often curable, the medicines used to treat it can cause unpleasant and sometimes severe side effects. Prof Mel Greaves and his colleagues decided to study identical twins who shared the same DNA inherited from their parents. Both twins developed ALL in early childhood, at around four years of age. By comparing blood and bone marrow samples of the twins in later childhood, the researchers found one genetic mutation identical in both twins - a common leukaemia-causing gene called ETV6-RUNX1.

The researchers reason that this mutation must have arisen in one of the twins while in the womb. Cells carrying the mutation then spread to the other twin via their shared placental blood circulation. The identical twins had a total of 22 other mutations, but none of these mutations was shared by both twins, and so they must have accumulated after birth as the disease progressed, say the researchers. Study co-author Prof Greaves said: "We were able to sequence the entire human genome. It told us for the first time that this is the key mutation that starts the whole process of leukaemia. The other mutations must have happened after birth."

Dr Julie Sharp of Cancer Research UK said: "This interesting research shows how studying the DNA of twins can shed light on the genetic mistakes that first initiate cancer in children and the subsequent faults that occur as the cancer evolves. "Studies like this could reveal new ways to target the very roots of cancer and help us better understand how the disease develops over time. Survival rates have increased significantly over the past decades thanks to research, but there is still more to do to make treatments better with fewer side-effects."

BBC News - Scientists track leukaemia's origins 'back to the womb'