Cancer Cures in Two Years?

Ok, waaay off topic, but we all want to see this succeed, and I have particularly strong personal reasons. I have experience with someone close to me going through innovative cancer treatments at Wake Forest and I tend to listen up when something hits the news from that facility.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week gave Dr Zheng Cui permission to inject special immune cells into 22 patients. These donors have cells that are super-strength (up to 50 times more effective in fighting cancer than others’.) But How, and Why?

Dr Cui, who presented his latest findings in Cambridge last week, extracted such cells from 100 people, including some with cancer. When the immune cells were mixed with 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.

Dr Cui was the one who identified granulocytes as the cells responsible for mouse cancer immunity, a dramatic step forward in cancer research, for which he received acclaim last year. He injected the cells from immune mice into ordinary mice, and found it was possible to give them protection from cancer, often for the rest of their lives.

MUST READ: Wake Forest School of Medicine has Published a Summary of Current Research that is easy to read, and it’s better to get it there than from me.

Also: See New Scientist, 20 Sept 07, Issue 2622 (subscription)

Watch the yellow arrow on this video which points out where a type of white blood cell called a granulocyte is killing cervical cancer cells.

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