Personalised drugs could revamp war on cancer

Immune system hits rogue cells

A BREAKTHROUGH method that effectively gives personalised treatment for cancer has been discovered by scientists.

The treatment harnesses the power of the body’s immune system and targets it at tumours.

Early experiments show the new method could revolutionise cancer care.

Scientists have found a system that primes the body’s immune system to recognise, attack and kil l off cancerous cells in lung, skin and bowel tumours.

The team that carried out the research f ound that early trials ‘profoundly retarded’ tumour growth in mice.

Survival rates were boosted by more than 50 per cent, according to results published i n the j ournal Nature last night.

The scientists are now recruiting patients with skin cancer for the first clinical trial on humans.

British experts said it was the most promising sign yet that ‘personal’ treatments may be effective in tackling a wide range of cancers.

Until now, most cancer drugs have been designed according to the type of tumour they are attacking – a broad- brush approach in which the type of drug is selected depending where the tumour is sited.

But t he new f ocus on personal cancer t herapy instead aims to harness each individual’s immune system and give it a boost, depending on the genetic make-up of the tumour itself.

The ground-breaking technique may provide a universal blueprint for vaccines that can target a wide range of human cancers. And the method overcomes the problem of cancer presenting an ever-moving target constantly evolving to evade the immune system.

Scientists last night wel- comed the German team’s breakthrough.

Professor Kevin Harrington, from the Institute of Cancer Research, London, said: ‘This study provides the first evidence that we may be on the threshold of being able to produce individualised vaccines

‘Most promising sign yet’

directed against specific mutations present in a patient’s tumour.

‘Rapid production of purpose-built vaccines appears possible and can now be tested in carefully- designed clinical trials. As yet, this approach must be seen as experimental but it potentially represents a new way of harnessing the power of the immune system against cancer.’

The team of scientists, led by Dr Ugur Sahin of Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, identified tumour-specific mutations linked to the different cancers and showed that many of them could be recognised by the body’s immune system.

They then created vaccines based on the body’s own RNA – a genetic messenger – which encouraged the immune system to direct itself towards t he weakest part of t he tumour.

The treatment was shown to boost the body’s T-cells, which detect, hunt down and destroy cancer cells.

Of the mice treated, twothirds were alive after 100 days.

Those that did not receive treatment all died within 65 days.

When repeated vaccinations were administered to the mice, ‘ tumour growth was profoundly retarded’, the authors wrote.

Professor Peter Johnson, from the Cancer Research UK Centre at Southampton General Hospital, said: ‘This technique provides the first evidence that i t may be possible to direct the immune system to fight cancer using personalised vaccines.’