New cancer therapy may fight old age, too

THE news that King Charles has cancer came as a nasty shock. In fact, one in two of us will develop cancer at some point — but the good news is . . . most will recover.

There have been huge advances in ways of diagnosing and treating cancers, but immunotherapy — using our own immune system to attack and destroy cancer — is perhaps the most exciting.

One of the most promising types of immunotherapy is CAR T-cell therapy, where T-cells (a type of white blood cell that destroy invading microbes) are taken from a patient and modified so they target and eliminate the cancer cells. It’s mainly used for advanced, otherwise untreatable forms of blood cancer, such as lymphoma. It’s also being trialled for cancers of the lung, liver and prostate. But now there’s even talk of using CAR T-cell therapy to prolong healthy life. Here, modified T-cells are used to fight one of the underlying causes of ageing, ‘senescent’ cells.

If you live in a house for a long time, you tend to accumulate lots of junk.

The same is true of our bodies: over the years, they accumulate more and more old (or senescent) cells, which cause long-term damage by triggering chronic inflammation. Now researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the U.S. have shown that CAR T-cell therapy can be used to seek and destroy these senescent cells, with impressive results.

In the study, mice given a single dose of their own modified T-cells when they were young stayed slimmer and led healthier lives; the therapy improved their metabolism and led to them becoming more active, protecting them against type 2 diabetes and obesity.

So could modified T-cells be a potential fountain of youth, as well as potent cancer fighters? Fingers crossed.