Modified T-Cell Cancer Therapy: The Future of Cancer Therapy?

With extremely positive results on trials in terminally ill patients, does modified T-cell cancer therapy represent the future of effective cancer therapy?

By: Ringo Bones 

Though it is yet to be peer reviewed by other researchers but extremely positive results in early trials had the medical science community hailing T-cell therapy as the future of cancer therapy and some even said that it has put cancer on the run for the first time in the history of cancer treatment. “This is unprecedented” said one researcher after more than half of terminally ill blood cancer patients experienced complete remission in early clinical trials.  Scientists are claiming “extraordinary” success with engineering immune cells to target a specific type of blood cancer in their first clinical trials. 

Among several dozen patients who would typically have only had months to live, early experimental trials that used the immune system’s T-cells to target cancers had “extraordinary results”. In one study, 94-percent of participants with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) saw symptoms vanish completely. Patients with other blood cancers have response rates greater than 80-percent and more than half experienced complete remission. Speaking at an annual meeting for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), researcher Stanley Riddell said: “This is unprecedented in medicine, to be honest, to get response rates in this range in these very advanced patients.” 

Modified T-cell cancer therapy is a multi-step process that starts when a sample of the patient’s T-cells (a type of white blood cell involved in fighting infection) is taken from their blood. In the lab, these cells have genetically modified sensor cells (antigen receptors) added to them that can seek out certain cancers. The modified T-cells are then allowed to multiply and then the genetically modified T-cells are infused back into the patient where the new antigen receptors allow them to target and destroy the cancer cells. 

“There are reasons to be optimistic, there are reasons to be pessimistic,” said Stanley Riddell of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Washington State. He added that the researchers believe that lowering the dose of the modified T-cells can reduce the risk of side-effects. Modified T-cell cancer therapy is often considered an option of last resort because reprogramming the immune system can come with dangerous side-effects, including cytokine release syndrome (sCRS) – and overload of defense cells.

Zika Virus: It Came from Uganda?

Even though the “face of Zika virus” presented by the press has so far been microcephaly afflicted infants from Brazil, but did you know that the Zika virus was originally from a Ugandan forest? 

By: Ringo Bones 

At the moment, the “face of Zika virus” or the overall picture of it presented by the world’s main news providers has been so far microcephaly afflicted infants from Brazil – mainly from Rio de Janeiro – which has so far raised fears that this year’s Summer Olympic Games which will be held this coming August could potentially trigger a pandemic that could help spread the Zika virus across the world or at least something akin to the previous Ebola virus epidemic across West Africa during the latter half of 2014. The Zika virus in current affected regions are mainly transmitted by daytime-active mosquitoes and has been isolated from a number of species in the genus Aedes, such as Aedes aegypti and various arboreal mosquitoes such as Aedes africanus. Despite of the current anxiety over the Zika virus, does the general population know that the virus originally came from a remote jungle in Uganda and that it was first discovered almost 70 years ago? 

In 1947, scientists researching yellow fever placed a rhesus macaque in a cage in the Zika Forest (zika meaning “overgrown” in the Luganda language), near the East African Virus Research Institute in Entebbe, Uganda. The monkey then developed a fever and researchers isolated from its serum a transmissible agent that was first described as Zika virus in 1952. It was subsequently isolated from a human in Nigeria in 1954. Thanks to the increased travel due to the 1960s "Jet Age", the Zika virus is now widely distributed in tropical equatorial regions across the world. From its discovery until 2007, confirmed cases of Zika virus infection from Africa and Southeast Asia were extremely rare, thus explains why no work was ever done in developing a Zika virus vaccine since the virus’ discovery back in 1947. And health authorities have announced that an effective vaccine against the Zika virus won’t be available for at least 10 or even 12 years. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control, Brazilian health authorities reported more than 3,500 microcephaly cases between October 2015 and January 2016. Some of the affected infants have has a severe type of microcephaly and some have died. The full spectrum of outcomes that might be associated with infection during pregnancy and the factors that might increase risk to fetuses are not yet fully understood. More studies are planned to learn more about the risks of Zika virus infection during pregnancy. In the worst affected region of Brazil approximately 1 percent of newborns are suspected of microcephaly. The current Zika virus epidemic in Brazil had caused debilitating health problems in newborns hitherto unseen since the teratogenic effects of thalidomide surfaced back in the 1960s. 

Gene Editing: Legitimate Therapeutic Tool Or Designer Baby Enabler?

Despite its promise, will gene editing be used as a legitimate therapeutic tool or as a mere way to manufacture “perfect” designer babies?

By: Ringo Bones 

The promise of effectively curing inheritable diseases and the dangers of indiscriminately manufactured designer babies is now a step closer thanks to gene editing – which is an improved version of gene therapy. Techniques to edit human DNA for therapeutic means have been around for some time. One method is gene therapy which was already in regular use for the past 15 years. Gene therapy involves using a disabled virus – known as viral vector – to deliver a synthetic functioning copy of gene into cells. Sadly, this method has a glaring disadvantage because there is no way for scientists to know where the gene will end up amidst the billions of letters of DNA code in the nucleus of cells. 

The latest improved method of “gene therapy” dubbed as gene editing or genome editing offers something far more precise – adding the gene in an exact location. And unlike older gene therapy methods, gene editing can also be used to snip out a faulty section of DNA. 

There are currently several types of gene editing schemes, but the technology really took off three years ago when a cheap and efficient method was developed by Prof. Jennifer Doudna of University of California, Berkeley and Prof. Emmanuelle Charpentier, now at the Helmholtz Center for infectious Research in Germany. Known as Crispr-Cas9, it has been adopted by scientists around the world. 

Crisprs (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) are sections of DNA, while Cas9 (crispr-associated protein 9) is an enzyme. They are found in bacteria which they use to disable attacks from viruses. Rather like a GPS sat nav, Crispr scans the genome looking for the right location and then use the Cas9 protein as “molecular scissors” to snip through the DNA. Prof. Doudna and Prof. Charpentier realized that this bacterial cut-and-paste system could be used to edit human genes. Almost immediately Crispr became the gene editing technique of choice because of its speed, accuracy and simplicity. It has caused a quiet revolution in research labs across the world. Experiments which once took months can now be done in weeks and the potential is vast. 

Last month, scientists said they had used it to create a mosquito that can resist malaria. Plant breeders are using Crispr to create disease-resistant strain of crops. Back in April 2015, researchers in Mainland China edited human embryos to try to correct a faulty gene that caused an inherited blood disorder. The embryos used were never destined to be implanted, but the research rang alarm bells about the implications of gene editing – i.e. the “specter” of perfect blond blue-eyed designer babies and editing out mental disorders like manic depression, which unfortunately, is a prerequisite mental disorder for brilliant poets, authors, musicians and playwrights. 

Artificial Intelligence Programs: The New Cancer Treatment Paradigm?

Even though it can’t yet pass the Turing Test, does Berg Health’s artificial intelligent computer program represent a new paradigm in cancer treatment research and development? 

By: Ringo Bones 

Even though the working principles of such computer programs were first mentioned in Star Trek: The Next Generation and other science fiction programs back in the late 1980s, it is only relatively recently that an artificial intelligent computer program had actually reduced the time and costs in the research and development of new anti-cancer drugs - which is of upmost importance if the new anti-cancer drug proves to be safer than current chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment schemes. Even though it can’t yet pass the Turing Test, it does show promise of reducing the excessive costs and lengthy development times in introducing new and more effective anti-cancer treatment drugs to the market. 

Berg Health – a pharmaceutical start up founded in back in 2008 with Silicon Valley venture capital backing, said that its proprietary artificial intelligent computer program has managed to slash both time and development costs of putting a new more effective anti-cancer drug into the market. It has already managed to develop a new anti-cancer drug that’s expected to go on sale within three years – marking seven years in development compared to the general 14 years using previous methods. 

Recent cancer research shows that healthy cells feed on glucose in the body and then die off in a process known as cell death when their usefulness draws to a close. But in some circumstances the mitochondria – the part of the cell that provides its energy – malfunctions and metabolizes lactic acid instead of glucose, turning off the built in cell death function at the same time. The cell can then become cancerous and a tumor grows. Berg Health’s new drug – BPM31510 – will reactivate the mitochondria, restarting the metabolizing of glucose as normal and reinstituting call death so the body can harmlessly pass the problem cell out of the body. 

Berg Health’s research and development team used a specialized form of artificial intelligence computer program to compare samples taken from patients with the most aggressive strains of cancer, including pancreatic, bladder and brain, with those from non-cancerous individuals. The technology highlighted disparities between the corresponding biological profiles, selecting those it predicted would respond best to the drug being tested. 

“We’re looking at 14-trillion data points in a single tissue sample. We can’t humanly process that”, says Niven Narain, a clinical oncologist and Berg Health co founder. “Because we’re tackling this data-driven approach, we need a supercomputer capability. We use them for mathematics in a big data analytic platform, so it can collate that data into various categories: healthy population for women, for men, disease candidates, etc, and it’s able to take these slices in time and integrate them so that we’re able to see where it’s gone wrong and develop drugs based on that information,” Mr. Narain said. 

Berg Health expects to begin phase two trials of the drug in January 2016, meaning it has already been proven to be effective on animal or cell culture tests and is safe to continue testing in humans. Mr. Narain said it usually takes 2.6-billion US dollars and 12 to 14 years to get a new drug to the market, and that the trial metric within four and a half years worth of development indicated the time it takes to create a new drug can be cut by at least 50-percent. This will also translate into less expenditure, he claimed. “I don’t believe we’re going to spend 1.3-billion US dollars to produce our first drug, so the cost is cut by at least 50-percent too” he added. “There’s a bit of trial and error in the old model so a lot of these costs are due to the failure of really expensive clinical trials. We’re able to be more predictive and effective…and that’s going to cut hundreds of millions of dollars off the cost.”

Should A Breast Cancer Gene Be Patented?

Even though a US firm Myriad Genetics currently holds a patent of one, is it even ethical for corporate firms to hold patents on a breast cancer gene?

By: Ringo Bones 

Recently, a Brisbane grandmother named Yvonne D’Arcy celebrated a High Court victory over the BRCA-1 breast cancer gene patent. Australia’s High Court says “human genes are not patentable invention” as Australia’s High Court overthrows previous ruling. Given the recent court decision, would this spell relief to working class cancer sufferers? 

During the past few years, campaigners are busy raising the issue of gene patenting because if corporations got what they wish for, cancer testing could become prohibitively expensive for working class folks due to exorbitant royalty fees. And every high court the world over not beholden by big multinational medical corporations still subscribe to the view that “corporations can patent something that naturally occurs in the human body”.  

The issue of gene patenting and its implications to social justice, and even medical ethics, had been around since 1992. Social justice campaigners had been concerned when corporate buccaneers became busy prospecting for “patentable biochemical agents” in the Amazon Rain Forest during the early 1990s. If big multinational medical corporations’ got their way, corporations could legally ask for Amazonian tribes to pay them money – as “royalty fees” - every time these tribes use their traditional healing herbs that they’ve been using for thousands of years.