Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Monday 19 June 2017

Living drugs new frontier for cancer patients out of options

munotherapy drugs called cept only a few.
“checkpoint inhibitors” re- For all the excitement,
lease one brake so nearby there are formidable chal-
T cells can strike. The new lenges.
cellular immunotherapy Scientists still are unravel-
approach aims to be more ing why these living cancer
potent: Give patients stron- drugs work for some peo-
ger T cells to begin with. ple and not others.
Currently available only Doctors must learn to man-
in studies at major cancer age potentially life-threat-
centers, the first CAR-T cell ening side effects from an
therapies for a few blood overstimulated immune
cancers could hit the mar- system. Also concerning is
ket later this year. The Food a small number of deaths
and Drug Administration is from brain swelling, an un-
evaluating one version de- explained complication
veloped by the University of that forced another com-
Pennsylvania and licensed pany, Juno Therapeutics,
to Novartis, and another to halt development of
created by the National one CAR-T in its pipeline;
Cancer Institute and li- Kite recently reported a
In this photo taken March 28, 2017, research technician Ashwini Balakrishnan works in the immu- censed to Kite Pharma. death, too.
notherapy research lab of Dr. Stanley Riddell at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in CAR-T therapy “feels very And, made from scratch
Seattle. much like it’s ready for for every patient using their
(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson) prime time” for advanced own blood, this is one of
By LAURAN NEERGAARD month later doctors at the “It shows the unbelievable blood cancers, said Dr. the most customized thera-
AP Medical Writer Fred Hutchinson Cancer power of your immune sys- Nick Haining of the Dana- pies ever and could cost
SEATTLE (AP) — Ken She- Research Center couldn’t tem,” said Dr. David Malo- Farber Cancer Institute and hundreds of thousands of
fveland’s body was swol- find any signs of lymphoma ney, Fred Hutch’s medical Broad Institute of MIT and dollars.
len with cancer, treatment in the Vancouver, Wash- director for cellular immu- Harvard, who isn’t involved “It’s a Model A Ford and we
after treatment failing un- ington, man’s body. notherapy who treated in the development. need a Lamborghini,” said
til doctors gambled on a “Today I find out I’m in full Shefveland with a type Now scientists are tackling CAR-T researcher Dr. Re-
radical approach: They remission — how wonder- called CAR-T cells. a tougher next step, what nier Brentjens of New York’s
removed some of his im- ful is that?” said Shefveland “We’re talking, really, pa- Haining calls “the acid Memorial Sloan Kettering
mune cells, engineered with a wide grin, giving tients who have no other test”: Making T cells target Cancer Center, which, like
them into cancer assassins his physician a quick em- options, and we’re see- far more common cancers Hutch, has a partnership
and unleashed them into brace. ing tumors and leukemias — solid tumors like lung, with Juno.
his bloodstream. This experimental therapy disappear over weeks,” breast or brain cancer. In Seattle, Fred Hutch of-
Immune therapy is the hot- marks an entirely new way added immunotherapy sci- Cancer kills about 600,000 fered a behind-the-scenes
test trend in cancer care to treat cancer — if scien- entific director Dr. Stanley Americans a year, includ- peek at research under-
and this is its next frontier — tists can make it work, safe- Riddell. But, “there’s still lots ing nearly 45,000 from leu- way to tackle those chal-
creating “living drugs” that ly. Early-stage studies are to learn.” kemia and lymphoma. lenges. At a recently
grow inside the body into stirring hope as one-time in- T cells are key immune “There’s a desperate opened immunotherapy
an army that seeks and de- fusions of supercharged im- system soldiers. But can- need,” said NCI immuno- clinic, scientists are taking
stroys tumors. mune cells help a remark- cer can be hard for them therapy pioneer Dr. Ste- newly designed T cells from
Looking in the mirror, She- able number of patients to spot, and can put the ven Rosenberg, pointing to the lab to the patient and
fveland saw “the cancer with intractable leukemia brakes on an immune at- queries from hundreds of back again to tease out
was just melting away.” A or lymphoma. tack. Today’s popular im- patients for studies that ac- what works best.q