Novel experiment shrinks cancer cells

In a novel experiment, a woman with advanced pancreatic cancer saw her tumors dramatically shrink after researchers in Oregon turbocharged her own immune cells, highlighting a possible new way to someday treat a variety of cancers.

Kathy Wilkes isn’t cured but said what’s left of her cancer has shown no sign of growth since the one-time treatment in June 2021.

“I knew that regular chemotherapy would not save my life, and I was going for the save,” said Wilkes of Ormond Beach, Florida, who tracked down a scientist thousands of miles away and asked that he attempt the experiment.

The research, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, explored a new method of harnessing the immune system to create “living drugs” able to seek and destroy tumors.

“It’s really exciting. It’s the first time this sort of treatment has worked in a very difficult-to-treat cancer type,” said Dr. Josh Veatch of the Fred Hutchtypes inson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, who wasn’t involved with the experiment.

It’s just a first step and far more research is needed, he cautioned – noting that Wilkes is one of only two people known to have tried this approach and it failed in the other patient.

Still, Veatch said the findings are “a proof of principle that this is possible” and that other researchers also are testing this type of immunotherapy.

T cells are key immune soldiers, able to kill diseased cells – but too often cancer evades them. Doctors have learned how to strengthen T cells to fight some

of leukemia and lymphoma. They add an artificial receptor to patients’ T cells so the immune fighters can recognize a marker on the outside of blood cancer cells, and attack.

But that CAR-T therapy doesn’t work against more common solid tumors, which don’t carry that same danger marker.

The new twist: At Oregon’s Providence Cancer Institute, researcher Eric Tran genetically engineered Wilkes’ T cells so they could spot a mutant protein that’s hidden inside her tumor cells – and only there, not in healthy cells.

How? Certain molecules sit on the surface of cells and give the immune system a sneak peek of what proteins are inside. If a complex receptor on the T cell recognizes the person’s genetically distinct “HLA” molecule and that one of the protein snippets embedded in it is the targeted mutant, that immune fighter can latch on.

It’s an approach known as T cell receptor, or TCR, therapy. Tran stressed that the research remains highly experimental but said Wilkes’ remarkable response “provides me with optimism that we’re on the right track.”

“It’s really exciting.

It’s the first time this sort of treatment has worked in a very difficult-to-treat cancer type.”

Dr. Josh Veatch

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle