Cancer-killing stem cells have been engineered in a lab.
Scientists have discovered a way of turning stem cells into killing machines to fight brain cancer," BBC News reported. While the results of this study were encouraging, the research involved mice, not humans.
A new way to use stem cells to fight brain cancer is revealed in a proof-of-concept study published in the journal Stem Cells, where scientists describe how they got the cells to produce and release toxins that kill only tumor cells.
Led by Dr. Khalid Shah, a neuroscientist at Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Harvard University, in Cambridge, MA, and also of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston, MA, the scientists found the toxin-releasing stem cells eliminated cancer cells left behind in mouse brains following tumor removal.
Scientists from Harvard Medical School conducted experiments on mice. The stem cells were engineered genetically to produce toxins that kill brain cancer cells. These toxins didn't produce harm to normal cells or themselves. Researchers are affirmative to test this method in humans in near future.
Researchers have been finding a way for many years which would kill tumor only without influencing the health of normal cells.
In this procedure, researchers used genetic engineering to make stem cells which secreted toxins that have the potency to kill cancer cells. These cells targeted tumor cells exclusively and didn't harm any other cells.
This technique has been used with great success to treat blood cancers such as leukemia, but has been less successful at treating solid tumors . The researchers suggest this is because it only remains active for a short amount of time (has a short half-life) and because it may be difficult to reach the tumor.
To overcome these problems, the researchers genetically engineered neural stem cells, which could make pseudomonas exotoxin while being resistant to the poison themselves.
The poison-making stem cells were able to kill these brain cancer cells both in the laboratory and in mice engineered to develop brain tumors.
Dr. Shah, who directs the Molecular Neurotherapy and Imaging Lab at MGH and Harvard Medical School, says: "Cancer-killing toxins have been used with great success in a variety of blood cancers, but they don't work as well in solid tumors because the cancers aren't as accessible and the toxins have a short half-life."
Nell Barrie, senior science information manager for Cancer Research UK, said it was an "ingenious approach".
"We urgently need better treatments for brain tumors and this could help direct treatment to exactly where it's needed.
"But so far the technique has only been tested in mice and on cancer cells in the lab, so much more work will need to be done before we'll know if it could help patients with brain tumors."
She said this type of research could help boost survival rates and bring much-needed progress for brain cancers.
Dr Shah now plans to test the technique using a number of different therapies on mice with glioblastoma, the most common brain tumor in human adults.
He hopes the therapies could be used in clinical trials within the next five years.
