Leukaemia breakthrough
March 26, 2013
A US RESEARCH team have
announced that two children with
an aggressive form of childhood
leukaemia had a complete remission
of their disease.
According to the researchers, the
children show no evidence of cancer
cells in their bodies, after treatment
with a novel cell therapy that
reprogrammed their immune cells
to rapidly multiply and destroy
leukaemia cells.
Published in The New England
Journal of Medicine, the study used
immunotherapy- a treatment which
manipulates the immune system to
increase its cancer-fighting
capabilities.
As such, the researchers
engineered T cells to selectively kill
another type of immune cell called
B cells, which had become cancerous.
To this end, the researchers
removed some of each patient's
own T cells and modified them to
create a type of CAR (chimeric
antigen receptor) cell called a
CTL019 cell- designed to attack a
protein called CD19 that occurs
only on the surface of certain B cells.
By creating an antibody that
recognises CD19 and then
connecting that antibody to T cells,
the researchers created in CTL019
cells a sort of guided missile that
locks in on and kills B cells, thereby
attacking B-cell leukemia.
After being returned to the
patient's body, the CTL019 cells
multiply a thousand times over and
circulate throughout the body.
Importantly, they persist for
months afterward, guarding against
a recurrence of this specific type of
leukaemia.
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