Here’s my post from another forum re the latest “potential” cancer breakthrough that was just announced yesterday:
Exciting stuff: While using a patient’s own T-cells for immunotherapy is not new (CAR-T - a living drug made from a patient’s own T-cells that are programmed to attack cancerous cell) it has not been useful in cancers that form solid tumors. In a paper published today in “Nature” researchers at Cardiff University have discovered a new T-cell that has a receptor on its surface that allows it to to scan for a molecule on the surface of every cell in the body, known as MR1. It is thought MR1 is somehow flagging the distorted metabolism going on inside a cancerous cell to the immune system, (the new T-cell that has the MR1 receptor). The Cardiff team discovered that the new T-cell and its receptor 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. Crucially, it left normal tissues untouched.
Testing on humans has not yet taken place, but it may prove to be an exciting pathway to future medicines and treatments.
See:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-019-0578-8https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51182451
