[url]http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20110810/gene-therapy-cures-adult-leukemia[/url]
[quote]
[b]Two of three patients dying of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) appear cured and a third is in partial remission after infusions of genetically engineered T cells.[/b]
The treatment success came in a pilot study that was only meant to find out whether the treatment was safe, and to determine the right dose to use in later studies. But the therapy worked vastly better than University of Pennsylvania researchers David L. Porter, MD, Carl H. June, MD, and colleagues had dared to hope.
"Our results were absolutely dramatic. It is tremendously exciting," Porter tells WebMD. "These kinds of outcomes don't come around very often. We are really hopeful that we can now translate this into treatment for much larger numbers of patients and apply this technique to other diseases and to many more patients."
Excitement is spreading as oncologists learn about the findings. "I think it is a big deal," says Jacque Galipeau, MD, professor of hematology and medical oncology at Emory University Winship Cancer Center. Galipeau was not involved in the Porter study.
[b]"Here's this guy, the handwriting is on the wall, any hematologist will tell you he is a goner -- this guy was essentially cured,"[/b] Galipeau tells WebMD. "These genetically engineered cells did what everyone in the field has tried to do for 20 years. The man probably had kilograms of disease in his body, and the cells mopped it up completely."
The treatment uses a form of white blood cells called T cells harvested from each patient. A manmade virus-like vector is used to transfer special molecules to the T cells. One of the molecules, CD19, makes the T cells attack B lymphocytes -- the cells that become cancerous in CLL.
All this has been done before. These genetically engineered cells are called chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells. They kill cancer in the test tube. But in humans, they die away before they do much damage to tumors.
What's new about the current treatment is the addition of a special signaling molecule called 4-1BB. This signal does several things: it gives CAR T cells more potent anti-tumor activity, and it somehow allows the cells to persist and multiply in patients' bodies. Moreover, the signal does not call down the deadly all-out immune attack -- the feared "cytokine storm" -- that can do more harm than good.
This may be why relatively small infusions of the CAR T cells had such a profound effect. Each of the cells killed thousands of cancer cells and destroyed more than 2 pounds of tumor in each patient.
"Within three weeks, the tumors had been blown away, in a way that was much more violent than we ever expected," June says in a news release. 'It worked much better than we thought it would."
[/quote]
Great. Now we don't have a reason to take that enhanced ecstasy.
Way to go, [I]science.[/I]
Dick.
[QUOTE=Cone;31852842]Great. Now we don't have a reason to take that enhanced ecstasy.
Way to go, [I]science.[/I]
Dick.[/QUOTE]
ecstacy and other shit like that is disgusting anyway
Ok this is a major breakthrough. Lukemia was previously uncureable, you guys know this right?
[QUOTE=Gekkosan;31852854]ecstacy and other shit like that is disgusting anyway[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but it's drugs.
That's instant fun right there.
[QUOTE=Cone;31852946]Yeah, but it's drugs.
That's instant fun right there.[/QUOTE]Can someone please give this fine gentleman an aftermath picture from that drug [I]'Crocodile'[/I]
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;31852972]Can someone please give this fine gentleman an aftermath picture from that drug [I]'Crocodile'[/I][/QUOTE]
I'm talking softer stuff. The kind that a good amount of people take.
Besides, I wasn't being srs. Way to go, we cured Leukemia. Isn't that nice?
It is quite nice that we have something like this which is quite nice. Using T-cells and changing some of the genetic code to provide cancer killing properties. Just hope it doesn't end up like the T virus from resident evil. :tinfoil:
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;31852972]Can someone please give this fine gentleman an aftermath picture from that drug [I]'Crocodile'[/I][/QUOTE]
Because EVERY drug is like that shit.
And funny enough, the reason "crocodile" slowly rots you away is because of the easy but dirty process the poor people makes it.
Not the pure drug itself.
This is pretty cool that they made this work. Hopefully 4-1BB doesn't cause the modified T cells to do some undesirable things.
side note: I'm pretty sure this was how the movie version of I am Legend began.
[QUOTE=Jabberwocky;31853436]This is pretty cool that they made this work. Hopefully 4-1BB doesn't cause the modified T cells to do some undesirable things.
side note: I'm pretty sure this was how the movie version of I am Legend began.[/QUOTE]
Oh shit, it was.
What do we do now?
[QUOTE=Van-man;31853300]Because EVERY drug is like that shit.
And funny enough, the reason "crocodile" slowly rots you away is because of the easy but dirty process the poor people makes it.
Not the pure drug itself.[/QUOTE]
The pure drug itself is still very addictive though.
But this new treatment for leukeamia doesn't work in the same way traditional drugs work.
[editline]21st August 2011[/editline]
Here's the research paper by the way;
[url]http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/3/95/95ra73.full[/url]
genetically engineered t cells .... wait where have i
[img]http://media.screened.com/uploads/0/34/60990-t_virus___or_cure_by_animaleante_large.jpg[/img]
oh god no
Oh god this had better pan out and not turn into another one of those cancer cures that we never hear from again.
Holy fuck ass, a cure for me, finally!
[editline]21st August 2011[/editline]
You guys have no idea how painful chemo is.
[QUOTE=froztshock;31853884]Oh god this had better pan out and not turn into another one of those cancer cures that we never hear from again.[/QUOTE]
They're already testing on humans, give it 5 years, it will either pass or fail the trials.
[QUOTE=RichyZ;31853988]sadly, much like the NANOMACHINES and the virus that made the cancer cells benign, this will also fade into obscurity, god bless pharmaceutical companies[/QUOTE]
Yes, god bless them for actually doing 10 years trials instead of putting every cancer "cure" that shows up available on the market.
Awesome breakthrough, but still only two patients cured, one in remission. I'd really like to see this technique go through some more testing, though, based on the enthusiasm of the scientists in the article.
[QUOTE=AngryToad;31854072]Awesome breakthrough, but still only two patients cured, one in remission. I'd really like to see this technique go through some more testing, though, based on the enthusiasm of the scientists in the article.[/QUOTE]
That's still two less people with Leukemia all of a sudden, assuming they don't turn into the Vampire Zombies from I Am Legend in the process.
See, this is why we test this shit.
[QUOTE=RichyZ;31854134]or buying out the guys doing the research so they can keep selling treatments that cost a fuckton to buy
remember the mit guys that made a cure and now that is also gone[/QUOTE]
If those companies didn't "buy out" the researchers then they would probably go hungry. Small companies rely on big pharmaceutical companies to invest in their leads because they don't have the money to do clinical trials.
And more potential drugs fail those clinical trials then pass them; you just never hear about those failed compounds.
This is amazing. My mother had Leukaemia and almost died of it when I was a child.
I thought gene therapy was temporary as it could never fully alter someones DNA entirely, but only a huge portion, but since it isn't the actual genes it always ends up getting changed back.
[QUOTE=Karmah;31855447]I thought gene therapy was temporary as it could never fully alter someones DNA entirely, but only a huge portion, but since it isn't the actual genes it always ends up getting changed back.[/QUOTE]
But the beauty is they only have to modify a portion of T cells in order to provoke a sufficient immunologic anti-tumor response.
[QUOTE=Karmah;31855447]I thought gene therapy was temporary as it could never fully alter someones DNA entirely, but only a huge portion, but since it isn't the actual genes it always ends up getting changed back.[/QUOTE]
its not like people are born destined to get lukemia
[editline]21st August 2011[/editline]
its not part of their DNA, its just those cancerous cells
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
