This is amazing
‘Breakthrough’ method rids patients of advanced cancer
"In what is being hailed as a potential cancer breakthrough, three men suffering late-stage leukemia have been cured using their own, genetically reprogrammed immune systems.
The technique transforms blood-borne T-cells into “serial killers” that hunt down and obliterate cancer cells, leaving healthy tissue unharmed, according to a pair of studies published simultaneously in two prominent journals."
"This gene coaxed the T-cells to create an antibody — known as chimeric antigen receptor or CAR — that would specifically target structures on the surface of cancer cells. The newly armed T-cells were then injected back into the respective patients where they sought out and bound themselves to the cancer cells and killed them.
More importantly, however, the reprogrammed hunters caused other T-cells to multiply each time they attacked, creating more killers with each slain cancer cell.
“Within three weeks the tumours had been blown away, in a way that was much more violent than we ever expected,” Dr. Carl June, a senior study author, said in a statement.
“In addition to an extensive capacity for self-replication the infused T-cells are serial killers. On average each infused T-cell led to the killing of thousands of tumour cells,” said June, a University of Pennsylvania pathologist."
http://www.thespec.com/news/world/ar...dvanced-cancer