Stem cell finding gives cancer hope

Stem cell technology can be used to mass-produce cancer-killing immune cells designed to target different kinds of tumour, scientists have shown.

The research opens up the prospect of immunotherapy treatments helping many more cancer patients in the future.

In theory cancer can be tackled by elements of the body's own immune defences, especially white blood cells called T-cells.

But in practice, T-cells that target and kill cancer cells while ignoring healthy cells are very rare, and progress towards immune-based cancer treatments has been limited.

The new approach provides a way to reprogramme T-cells and create large numbers of them "off the shelf" primed to attack specific cancers.

A small number of healthy human T-cells were first reprogrammed into malleable stem cells with embryonic properties, US scientists reported in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

These induced pluripotent stem cells (iPScs) were then engineered to produce a tumour-specific receptor molecule on their surfaces.

Finally, the stem cells were coaxed to re-acquire their original T-cell properties while expanding to large numbers.

Each of the T-cells now had the all-important receptor that allowed it to target a particular cancer "antigen" or protein, in this case lymphoma.

Injected into mice with a human form of lymphoma, the lab-grown T-cells significantly suppressed tumour growth and increased survival.

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Stem cell finding gives cancer hope