Gene-edited immune cells could help wipe out deadly tumors

[Greg Bernhardt]

U.S. Doctors Plan to Treat Cancer Patients Using CRISPR
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/...chnologies-wont-lead-designer-babies/']crispr/[/URL]

The first human test in the U.S. involving the gene-editing tool CRISPR could begin at any time and will employ the DNA cutting technique in a bid to battle deadly cancers.

Doctors at the University of Pennsylvania say they will use CRISPR to modify human immune cells so that they become expert cancer killers, according to plans posted this week to a directory of ongoing clinical trials.

The study will enroll up to 18 patients fighting three different types of cancer—multiple myeloma, sarcoma, and melanoma—in what could become the first medical use of CRISPR outside China, where similar studies have been under way.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

This research builds upon earlier work on CAR-T cancer immunotherapy, in which doctors genetically engineer a patient's own immune cells to better fight cancer. Earlier this year, two CAR-T therapies were approved by the FDA to treat two types of blood cancer, and many more therapies are in the pipeline for clinical testing. Current CAR-T therapies use relatively imprecise genetic engineering methods to randomly insert the new genes into the DNA of T-cells. While effective, the random insertion of the gene can cause potentially disrupt important genes in the T-cells and cause unintended side effects. Using https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2017/https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/dont-fear-crispr-new-gene-editing-technologies-wont-lead-designer-babies/-immunotherapy to precisely insert the new gene into a specific location in the DNA of the T-cells can avoid these unintended effects and has been shown to create T-cells that are more potent at fighting tumors.