(Tom Hale/ IFL Science) — Scientists have discovered a new soldier of the immune system that could hold the power to treat most types of cancer.
A new study, reported in the journal Nature Immunology, has documented the discovery of a T-cell armed with a new type of receptor that is able to identify and kill most human cancer types while ignoring healthy cells.
Although independent experts warn that this discovery is still in its infancy, it could pave the way towards a highly sought after “universal” cancer therapy in the future.
A T-cell is a lymphocyte, a type of immune system cell that plays a central role in the body’s immune response. They can be used to treat some cancers in T-cell therapy whereby a patient’s own T-cells are extracted and genetically edited in a laboratory, arming them with a gene for a special receptor that binds to a certain protein on the patient’s cancer cells. This identifies the cell as a rogue and sparks an attack from the immune system. It can be very effective, but the treatment has to be personalized to each patient and only works in a limited number of cancers. (…)