The National Cancer Institute writes about how a new T-cell therapy has reduced side effects in a new clinical trial for lymphoma. The original therapy caused seizures, delirium, tremors, speech issues, but also helped many patients go into remission for advanced cancer. Some even died from these side effects. CAR T-cell therapy uses chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) protein and T cells. The CAR receptor assists T cells so they can fight the cancer more efficiently by finding the cancer. Scientists remodeled CAR in this new trial, but it still targets CD19 on lymphoma cells. The remodeled CAR T-cells produced lower levels of cytokines in the blood that would cause the harsh neurological side effects.
An article from News-Medical describes recent research from John Hopkins that could help treat prostate and pancreatic cancers in the future. Bone marrow cells with some genes deleted slowed prostate and cancer cell growth that had been transplanted on mice. Dendritic cells are more efficient in their inflammatory response when they do not contain the NF-kB p50 gene that codes for transcription. For some reason, cancer growth slows without this specific transcription. When scientists inoculated mice with the p50-negative myeloid cells and with human pancreatic and prostate cancer cells, the tumors grew about three times more slowly in 93% of the prostate cancers and 53% of the pancreatic cancers. These p50-negative cells that were transferred caused macrophages for tumors and dendritic cells activated T cells so the immune system could fight the cancer.
Dendritic and T cell therapy is incredibly complicated and new. However, I think there will by many breakthroughs in the future that will help cure and prevent many forms of cancer. The ongoing research on this topic is complex but very fascinating, and it is also a little bit “above my pay grade” in some instances. I had no idea this even existed, but these developments make me very proud to be a member of the scientific community. I cannot wait to see what is done with dendritic and T cell therapy in my lifetime as I am sure it will become more popular and effective.
Micro Madness 