Researchers at the [b]National Cancer Institute[/b] have sequenced the genome from a 43-year-old woman with an advanced and deadly type of cancer that had spread from her bile duct to her liver and lungs, then identified cells from her immune system that attacked a specific mutation in the malignant cells. [s]The New York Times[/s] reports that they then grew those immune cells in the laboratory and infused billions of them back into her bloodstream. The tumours began ‘melting away,’ said Dr Steven Rosenberg, the senior author of the article. The report notes that the woman is not cured: Her tumours are shrinking, but not gone. And an experiment on one patient cannot determine whether a new treatment works. But it says, the research is noteworthy because it describes an approach that may also be applied to common tumours that cause more than 80% of the 580,000 cancer deaths in the US every year.
[link url=http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/09/health/doctors-use-patients-immune-cells-to-shrink-cancer-tumors.html?emc=edit_th_20140509&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=42505380&_r=0]Full report in The New York Times[/link]
[link url=http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6184/641.abstract]Science abstract[/link]