The following is adapted from an article in BBC News dated January 20, 2020. To read the full article, click HERE.

HISTORY.

Immunotherapy is adapting our body’s own immune system to better fight cancer cells. It has made enormous progress in the last five years, see HERE. It has good results treating cancers of the blood, such as leukemia, and cancers of the skin such as melanoma. President Jimmy Carter was healed of a tumor of the brain that resulted from melanoma metastasizing. See HERE.

Even neck and head cancers have responded to such treatment…see HERE.

The researcher who discovered how to adapt the immune system was Dr James Allison. He won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2018 for this work.

It’s an intensive area of testing and research. There are dozens of immunotherapy research efforts in labs across the world, plus thousands of medical trials of potential immunotherapy drugs on people who have cancer.

But so far, the immunotherapy doesn’t work very well for solid tumors, as in breast cancer.

DISCOVERY.

“A newly-discovered part of our immune system could be harnessed to treat all cancers, say scientists.

The Cardiff University team [in the UK] discovered a method of killing prostate, breast, lung and other cancers in lab tests.

The findings, published in Nature Immunology, have not been tested in patients, but the researchers say they have ‘enormous potential’.

Experts said that although the work was still at an early stage, it was very exciting. . .          

What they found was a [new] T-cell inside people’s blood. This is an immune cell that can scan the body to assess whether there is a threat that needs to be eliminated.

The difference is this one could attack a wide range of cancers. . .

The Cardiff team discovered a T-cell and its receptor that could find and kill a wide range of cancerous cells in the lab including lung, skin, blood, colon, breast, bone, prostate, ovarian, kidney and cervical cancer cells.

Crucially, it left normal tissues untouched.

It raises the prospect of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ cancer treatment, a single type of T-cell that could be capable of destroying many different types of cancers across the population. . .

HOW WOULD IT WORK IN PRACTICE?

The idea is that a blood sample would be taken from a cancer patient.

Their T-cells would be extracted and then genetically modified so they were reprogrammed to make the cancer-finding receptor.

The upgraded cells would be grown in vast quantities in the laboratory and then put back into the patient. It is the same process used to make CAR-T therapies.

However, the research has been tested only in animals and on cells in the laboratory, and more safety checks would be needed before human trials could start.”

TAKEAWAY.

The promise is huge for this silver bullet that might destroy cancers of all kinds.

Intensive lab research and drug trials in cancer immunotherapy are being carried out across the world.

Some in the know have predicted the end of cancer within a decade.

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FRACMAN CONFLICTED.

My new novel, FracMan Conflicted, has been printed and I have copies that I can mail to you. The nominal price is $15.99 but if you would like a copy at a discounted price of $10 just send me an email with you mailing address. If you could write a short book review, save it for now, but post it on Amazon after the book is released (at end of March), that would be wonderful. My email is ian@higgs-palmer.com

Here is a short review of FracMan Conflicted:

 “This novel is about the work life of Kelly, a young engineer in the oil and gas industry, who starts her career working on wells in the USA. The story of her work life is joyful and amusing, and her challenges during the work and relationships with her colleagues make the novel highly entertaining. How she gains experiences during her career and evolves from a rookie to an experienced engineer is beautifully told in this book.”

—Alireza Salmachi, Professor, Australian School of Petroleum, University of Adelaide, Australia.”

The novel will be released in March 2020. It’s a story told from the inside of an oil-and-gas company that does fracking as part of its business. Plus it’s an intriguing romance between a flamboyant fracking expert and his trainee, a careful young woman who wants to climb up the career ladder.

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BLOG TOPICS: I write in-depth blogs about a curious mix of topics: Science and Energy, and Inspiration and Hope, and Health and Hiking. Something for everyone!

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The Gray Nomad ….. Read and realize there are more cancer treatment options.

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The law of the Lord is perfect,
    refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,
    making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right,
    giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are radiant,
    giving light to the eyes.

[Book of Psalms, chapter 19]