Cancer cure 'may be available in two years'

The Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | September 20, 2007 | Nic Fleming

[Stoat]

Cancer cure 'may be available in two years'

By Nic Fleming Science Correspondent
 

Last Updated: 8:26pm BST 19/09/2007

 

Cancer sufferers could be cured with injections of immune cells from other people within two years, scientists say.

• Red tape hinders cancer research, says report

  US researchers have been given the go-ahead to give patients transfusions of “super strength” cancer-killing cells from donors.

  Dr Zheng Cui, of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, has shown in laboratory experiments that immune cells from some people can be almost 50 times more effective in fighting cancer than in others.

  Dr Cui, whose work is highlighted in this week’s New Scientist magazine, has previously shown cells from mice found to be immune to cancer can be used to cure ordinary mice with tumours.

  The work raises the prospect of using cancer-killing immune system cells called granulocytes from donors to significantly boost a cancer patient’s ability to fight their disease, and potentially cure them.

  The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week gave Dr Cui permission to inject super-strength granulocytes into 22 patients.

  Dr Cui said: “Our hope is that this could be a cure. Our pre-clinical tests have been exceptionally successful.

  “If this is half as effective in humans as it is in mice it could be that half of patients could be cured or at least given one to two years extra of high quality life.

  “The technology needed to do this already exists, so if it works in humans we could save a lot of lives, and we could be doing so within two years.”

  Dr Cui is confident patients could benefit from the technique quickly because the technology used to extract granulocytes is the same as that already used by hospitals to obtain other blood components such as plasma or platelets.

  Prof Gribben, a cancer immunologist at Cancer Research UK’s experimental centre at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, said: “The concept of using immune system cells to kill off someone else’s cancer is very, very exciting.”

  Dr Cui, who presented his latest findings at an anti-ageing conference in Cambridge last week, extracted granulocytes from 100 people, including some with cancer.

  When the immune cells were mixed with cervical cancer cells, those from different individuals demonstrated vastly varying abilities to fight the cancer.

  Those of the strongest participants killed close to 97 per cent of the cancer cells in 24 hours, while those of the weakest killed only two per cent.

  The abilities of the cells of participants aged over 50 were lower than average, and those of cancer patients even lower.

  Dr Cui noticed that the strength of a person’s immune system to combat cancer can also vary according to how stressed they are and the time of year.

  Initial experiments suggest it may be possible to transfer granulocytes which have demonstrated strong cancer-fighting powers into cancer sufferers.

  In 1999 Prof Cui and colleagues discovered a male mouse that appeared to be completely resistant to virulent cancer cells of several different types.

  Since then more than 2000 mice in 15 generations have been bred from the original cancer-free mouse and 40 per cent of the offspring have inherited the immunity.

  With the immune system, some types of cells which provide “innate immunity” are constantly on patrol for foreign invaders, while others have to firstly learn to identify a specific threat before going on the attack.

  Scientists developing cancer vaccines have generally attempted to stimulate responses in the immune system cells that require prior exposure.

  Last year Dr Cui caused shockwaves in the cancer research community when he identified granulocytes as the cells responsible for the mouse cancer immunity – because they are among those which act automatically.

  Prof Gribben said: “This is surprising because it goes against how we thought immune system works against cancer. It makes us think again about our preconceived notions.”

  Prof Cui injected granulocytes from immune mice into ordinary mice, and found it was possible to give them protection from cancer.

  Even more excitingly he found the transfusions caused existing cancers to go into remission and to clear them completely within weeks.

  A single dose of the cells appeared to give many of the mice resistance to cancer for the rest of their lives.

  Granulocyte transfusion has previously been used to try to prevent infections in cancer patients whose immune systems have been weakened by chemotherapy.

  However their effectiveness has been unclear because they have mainly been given to patients in an advanced stage of disease.

  Prof Gribben warned the US researchers would have to be careful to avoid other immune system cells from the donor proliferating in the patient’s body.

  He added: “If they’re using live cells there is a theoretical risk of graft-versus-host disease, which can prove fatal.”

  Dr Cui said he is working on ways to minimise this risk.

   

  

   

[Stoat]

More here:

The Mprize-

[spanalot]

Smoke’em if you got’em.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

ping for future.

[maine-iac7]

Heard that headline for decades - cancer will not be “cured” by the medicos until something else deadly enough in large enough numbers comes along to keep the money flowing.

[Dysart]

bump

[FormerACLUmember]

Cancer cure 'may be available in two years'

Utterly preposterous.

Not to mention cruel and deceitful.

[FormerACLUmember]

cancer will not be “cured” by the medicos until something else deadly enough in large enough numbers comes along to keep the money flowing.

Dumb paranoid comment of the week.

[G8 Diplomat]

My theory for the cure:

Chromosomes have telomeres on the end, to protect the DNA from getting destroyed through division. Each time the cell divides however, the telomere gets a bit shorter. The only reason it doesn’t disappear completely is because of the enzyme telomerase, which helps regenerate it. In cancer cells however, cell division is taking place extremely rapidly. The telomeres of the defective DNA are getting cut shorter much quicker. Since this is DNA of the cancer cells, we don’t want that DNA, we don’t want malignant cells. If we could find a competitive inhibitor to the enzyme telomerase and inject it into the cancerous cells, perhaps the telomerase would stop working and would not regenerate telomeres on cancer cell chromosomes. Thus, due to rapid mitosis (cellular division), the cell would ultimately kill itself because the telomeres would disslove quicker and delete the DNA in the nucleus of the cancer cell.

But hopefully the cure will be here via this guy.

[Perdogg]

All of this done without the need of John Edwards.

[diamond6]

Here’s hoping!!

[Erik Latranyi]

What?! We didn’t have to suck stem cells from murdered children to accomplish this?!

[isom35]

well that was upbeat and optimistic :)

[SE Mom]

bookmark

[ari-freedom]

Cancer cure may be available in two years!

[U S Army EOD]

Just think how much of this has been prevented by people like John Edwards.

[TheDon]

Those of the strongest participants killed close to 97 per cent of the cancer cells in 24 hours, while those of the weakest killed only two per cent.

The abilities of the cells of participants aged over 50 were lower than average, and those of cancer patients even lower.

Perhaps, perhaps not. We shall see.

[momincombatboots]

I am just excited. I am an apheresis technician.

[pieceofthepuzzle]

“Utterly preposterous.

Not to mention cruel and deceitful.”

I agree. This may or may not be an additional effective bullet in the armamentarium against cancer, but it is unethical to hype things this way. Cancer is so very complex. People need to understand that every cell in our bodies has the same DNA instruction set, but some cells become heart muscle, some become skeletal muscle, some become neurons, some become the lining of the air sacs in your lung, etc. etc. etc. We don’t understand fully how this happens, and are just now starting to look at how some cells (e.g. stem cells) can maintain the ability to become other cell types. Cancer is in some ways the reverse of this process. Cancer occurs when cells that are already differentiated go back to a more primitive state. The mechanisms that define going in either direction are very complex and poorly understood.

[Candor7]

God , please let this be true, and hasten the day.

We are losing many good people to this insidious disease.

[Hot Tabasco]

Heard that headline for decades - cancer will not be “cured”

My Bro-in-law is a cancer specialist here in S.E. Michigan and he has been having great success with treatment of lung cancer.

A couple weeks ago I had a long conversation with his son (my nephew of course) who is also a doctor and he explained to me the politics that goes on within the medical community.

Most doctors only follow established "protocols" when treating cancer. Kinda like continuing to pitch fast balls to Barry Bonds. Sameo, sameo.......

He is constantly changing his treatments and trying to bring aboard other doctors who basically belong to the old school.

Then 6 months later, there will be an article in the AMA relevant to new successful treatments of different cancers and lo and behold, that's what my bro-in-law has been trying to tell his counterparts.........

bottom line is, it's all political and most doctors, afraid of the legal system, will only treat their patients with pre-established (and in many cases useless) medical treatments.