Treatment involves injecting transformed cancer cells to destroy the cancer.
What if it was soon possible to prevent the brain tumors from a simple vaccine? This is the promise of the work carried out by researchers at Harvard Medical School who have developed a particularly innovative cure. The goal, to inject cancerous cells into a patient’s body to destroy those that pose a greater danger. The first results are very promising.
Modified cancer cells
The results of this unpublished work have been published in the scientific journal Science Translational Medicine. Scientists started from a seemingly very simple postulate: modifying cancer cells so that they become “killers” of cancer cells.
When glioblastoma, the most common brain cancer in adults, develops, the cancer cells that caused it migrate through the brain, but they always eventually return to their original location and eventually die. The purpose of the cells created by the researchers is to take the place of these cancerous cells to destroy them.
The memory of the immune system
The action of this “cancer vaccine” does not stop there, because once injected, the modified cells trigger an immune system response that registers the characteristics of the glioblastoma-related cells to prevent their recurrence.
To prevent the situation from escalating, the cells modified by the scientists have a “security” that sends them the message to self-destruct to prevent them from proliferating in turn.
First conclusive tests
This treatment therefore has a dual purpose: to treat glioblastomas when they have started to develop, but also to prevent their appearance. The first results obtained on laboratory mice with brain tumors are very promising, but it will still be a long time before this phase of tests is transposed to humans. But if the results are confirmed, the door would be open to treating other forms of cancer.
