Cancer cells
Cancer cells can break away from the original tumor and travel through the blood or lymph system to distant locations in the body, where they exit the vessels to form additional tumors. This is called metastasis. Cancer is a disease caused when cells divide uncontrollably and spread into surrounding tissues.
Scientists are harnessing a new way to turn cancer cells into potent, anti-cancer agents, according to a study. investigators have developed a new cell therapy approach to eliminate established tumors and induce long-term immunity, training the immune system so that it can prevent cancer from recurring.
Cancer vaccines are an active area of research for many labs, but the approach that Shah and his colleagues have taken is distinct, the study said.
In the latest work from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the team of researchers tested their dual-action, cancer-killing vaccine in an advanced mouse model of the deadly brain cancer glioblastoma, with promising results, said the study. Findings are published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Shah’s team
Cancer vaccines are an active area of research for many labs, but the approach that Shah and his colleagues have taken is distinct, the study said.
Instead of using inactivated tumor cells, the team repurposes living tumor cells, which possess an unusual feature. Like homing pigeons returning to roost, living tumor cells will travel long distances across the brain to return to the site of their fellow tumor cells.
Taking advantage of this unique property, Shah’s team engineered living tumor cells using the gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 and repurposed them to release tumor cell killing agent, the study said.
Khalid Shah, director of the Centre for Stem Cell.
“Our goal is to take an innovative but translatable approach so that we can develop a therapeutic, the cancer-killing vaccine that ultimately will have a lasting impact in medicine”, said Shah.
Shah and colleagues note that this therapeutic strategy is applicable to a wider range of solid tumors and that further investigations of its applications are warranted.
