Researchers at Cardiff University report a very encouraging discovery in cancer research which they believe has "enormous potential" for curing a broad array of cancers.
The Cardiff team discovered a particular type of immune cell in the body, called a T-cell, that could find and kill a wide range of cancerous cells in the lab, including lung, skin, blood, colon, breast, bone, prostate, ovarian, kidney and cervical cancer cells, without harming normal tissues.
This is marvelous news because although T-cells are already being used against certain specific types of cancers, this new find would make it possible to develop T-cells that could potentially be employed to kill many cancer types that current T-cell technology is not very effective against. Current treatments are not very successful, for example, against cancers that form tumors.
What makes the Cardiff team's discovery a great advance is that they were able to isolate a receptor on a T-cell that can identify and bind with many different types of cancer cells and which would act something like a missile guidance system that would direct the T-cell to the cancerous cell and destroy it.
The way T-cell cancer treatments work is that a blood sample is taken from a cancer patient and the T-cells are extracted. A virus carrying the gene for the cancer-finding receptor molecule would then be used to insert that gene into the T-cell.
The genetically modified cells are then grown in vast quantities in the laboratory and put back into the patient where the T-cells go to work hunting down and killing cancer cells in the patient's body.
Unfortunately, the research has only been tested in animals and on cells in the laboratory, and more safety checks would be needed before human trials could start.
Nevertheless, if the trials are successful, it could be that in a few years far fewer people will be dying from cancers for which there currently is no good treatment.