Gene therapy against leukaemia
The US health authorities have just approved a new method for treating a fatal type of cancer, which particularly affects children. It is a historical breakthrough, as it is the first gene therapy to come out in America.
The new method can save some of the children and young people, who develop childhood leukaemia – a very aggressive type of blood cancer – annually. When doctors use the new treatment, they extract blood with immune cells from the patient and select T cells, which are supplied with a new gene, CAR. The gene allows the T cells to identify leukaemia cells in the blood, and when they are injected back into the blood vessels of the sick patient, the T cells kill the cancer cells they encounter.