Scientists stumble across killer immune cell that can destroy most types of cancer
Exciting new cancer therapies may be on the horizon after experts stumbled across an immune cell that kills off multiple forms of the disease.
The new T- cells, a type of white blood cell, recognised and destroyed most types of cancers while leaving healthy tissue unscathed.
Scientists at Card i f f University were analysing blood samples for immune cells that may fight bugs when they made the discovery.
They s ay the n ew tumour-killing cell may one day provide a ‘one-size’ fits all cancer treatment which was once believed to be impossible.
But their latest study only looked at the T-cells’ effectiveness on cancer grown in a laboratory.
Animal and eventually human studies will be needed to test its true tumour-destroying abilities.
Doctors have for years been using a treatment called CAR-T therapy, which involves extracting patients’ own immune cells and genetically modifying them.
The form of immunotherapy sees the T-cells returned to the sufferer’s blood where they hunt and destroy cancer cells.
But the treatment only targets a limited number of cancers - including blood and bone marrow - and has not been successful for solid tumours, which make up the majority of disease cases.
T-cells find it difficult to differentiate tumour cells from healthy tissue because of their similar genetic make- up, so they tend to end up attacking them both.
However the new killer cell is able to distinguish between the two and only kill off the cancerous ones. The researchers are now investigating exactly how this is possible.
In the latest study, the cell type was found to destroy 10 cancers while ignoring healthy tissue in a laboratory dish.
It was effective at treating lung, skin, blood, colon, breast, bone, prostate, ovarian, kidney and cervical cancer.
Lead study author Professor Andrew Sewell, from Cardiff Unive r s i t y ’ s School of Medicine, said it was ‘ highly unusual’ to find an attack cell which could accurately target so many types of cancer but still not healthy cells.
He said it raised the prospect of a ‘universal’ cancer therapy.
‘We hope this new TCR may provide us with a different route to target and destroy a wide range of cancers in all individuals,’ he said.
‘ Current TCR- based therapies can only be used in a minority of patients with a minority of cancers.
‘[The finding] raises the prospect of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ cancer treatment; a single type of T-cell that could be capable of destroying many different types of cancers across the population.
‘Previously nobody believed this could be possible.’
To test the therapeutic potential of the new T-cells, researchers injected them into mice with human cancers and human immune systems.
Scientists say they showed ‘ encouraging cancer- clearing abilities’.
Professor Awen Gallimore, of the University’s division of infection and immunity, and cancer immunology lead for the Wales Cancer Research Centre, added: ‘ If this transformative new finding holds up, it will lay the foundation for a universal T-cell medicine, mitigating against the tremendous costs associated with the identification, generation and manufacture of personalised T-cells.
‘ This is truly exciting and potentially a great step forward for the accessibility of cancer immunotherapy.’
The Welsh researchers hope to trial the new approach in patients towards the end of the year.
The findings - published in the journal Nature Immunology - were met with enthusiasm from the science community.
Daniel Davis, professor of immunology at the University of Manchester, was not involved with the research but said: ‘In general, we are in the midst of a medical revolution harnessing the power of the immune system to tackle cancer.
‘But not everyone responds to the current therapies and there can be harmful side-effects.
‘The Cardiff team and their collaborators have made the exciting discovery that a type of immune cell which hasn’t been studied much before, seems able to recognise a broad range of cancers.
‘The team have convincingly shown that, in a lab dish, this type of immune cell reacts against a range of different cancer cells.
‘We still need to understand exactly how it recognises and kills cancer cells, while not responding to normal healthy cells.’
Professor Awen Gallimore, of the University’s division of infection and immunity, and cancer immunology lead for the Wales Cancer Research Centre, added: ‘If this transformative new finding holds up, it will lay the foundation for a universal T-cell medicine, mitigating against the tremendous costs associated with the identification, generation and manufacture of personalised T-cells.