Scientists know almost everything about cancer. Nevertheless, specialists have not yet been able to overcome this dangerous ailment completely. But if cancer cells are so focused on destroying everything around them, why not force them to destroy their own kind?
A group of scientists from Brigham University did something similar. According to Science Translational Medicine, researchers have made significant strides in the fight against primary, recurrent and metastatic cancers. According to one of the authors of the work, Khalid Shah, “This is just the beginning. Cell-based therapy holds great promise for delivering drugs directly to tumors. We can "readjust" the patient's cancer cells and use them to treat cancer! Moreover, it can be used against all types of cancer cells."
How did you manage to achieve this? A team of scientists has created 2 methods. In the first case, special tumor cells were “collected” from scratch, which were complementary to the HLA phenotype (that is, in fact, were something like immune cells). In the second case, using CRISPR, the experts did the same, but with an already existing tumor. As a result, both types of cells, after being introduced into the body, migrated to the area of the tumor and began to “devour” it. Moreover, having destroyed the cancer, the "antitumor tumor" activates the self-destruction mechanism and disintegrates.
“Our research shows the high potential of tumor cells as a cancer-fighting therapeutic. The new method can be used even when drug delivery to the tumor is difficult."
Vladimir Kuznetsov