The journal Nature Immunology published an article yesterday that I think could be pretty important in the war on cancer:
CRISPR–Cas9 screening reveals ubiquitous T-cell cancer targeting via the monomorphic MR1 protein <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-019-0578-8.epdf?referrer_access_token=HDEpkmPOLIXidFQ7vTmyyNRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NjOoBZR7tEtwlsa1xeSU1tSn9OqKp9tJ7vTk8p7vCmAU4NZd5dS3BIALSEUtLFcpomMuKDUbEnW8GutXD_HuOev_ekvAEfzAa2kC03oyp2SuhBvB2N5K9feGAqhcKqIKgZC2OWk5VF1AgHIU4VXmKYtA08E37GZ-mC1LVqbRLRew%3D%3D&tracking_referrer=www.bbc.com> It's been Known for some time that T-cells can be extracted from a cancer patient and genetically modified with CRISPR to produce a receptor for the patient's cancer and therefore label it as malignant so the immune system can attack it. This has produced some very good results for some cancers like leukemia but unfortunately the treatment must be personalized for each patient and is far less effective in dealing with large solid cancers. But in this new discovery they found a protein called MR1 that does not change from person to person and exists on the surface of many different types of cancers. When they used CRISPR to make T-cells to produce a receptor for this MR1 protein the results have been encouraging. So far they've only tried it with mice and with human cells in vitro, but at least in those limited circumstances it has been shown to kill lung, skin, blood, colon, breast, bone, prostate, ovarian, kidney, and cervical cancer cells but seems to have no effect at all on non-cancerous normal cells. And one size fits all, no personalization is needed. It remains to be seen if this works as well in clinical trials, sometimes they don't, but one can hope. Scientist Finds New Blood Cell That Kills Cancer While Ignoring Healthy Cells <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esV98_-IIMc> John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv0o_HwbCKQBqA%3DQVPnYqULQe%3DywbCo9KfRJ5VCdwLU2Ew%40mail.gmail.com.
