discovery of cell gives hope

Thanks to this discovery, a universal treatment against many cancers could be developed. On this World Cancer Day, this information gives hope.

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It is a discovery that could well mark a turning point in the way of treating cancers. A new type of immune cell was accidentally discovered by British scientists.

A universal cancer treatment?

Cardiff University researchers were analyzing blood for immune cells that could fight specific bacteria when they encountered a new type of T cell.

In their study published this Monday, January 20 in the scientific journal Nature Immunology, scientists explain that this new immune cell carries a unique receptor that allows it to attack cancer cells without affecting healthy cells.

By attaching this receptor to other immune cells, this would allow them to attack lung, skin, blood, colon, breast, bone, prostate, ovarian, kidney and breast cancer. cervix.

Professor Andrew Sewell, one of the study authors, explained to The Telegraph that it was “very unusual” to find a cell like this and that it could pave the way for a new universal cancer therapy.

“It was a fortuitous discovery, nobody knew that this cell existed. Our discovery opens the prospect of a” unique “anticancer treatment, a single type of T cells which could be able to destroy many types of cancers in the population. So far, no one thought it could be possible. “

Human tests this year

Cancer therapies exist and immunotherapy is growing more and more, but each time it works for a limited number of cancers. This new approach would provide universal treatment.

The principle of this new method is as follows. We would have to take a blood sample from a cancer patient, then extract the T cells on which we would inject this new receptor which makes it possible to detect cancer cells, and therefore to fight them.

For the time being, tests were only performed on mice or cells in the laboratory but the results are promising. The researchers found that in addition to destroying a patient’s cancer cells, cells modified with the new receptor could also destroy other patients’ cancer cells.