Genetically Modified "Serial Killer" T Cells Obliterate Tumors in Patients with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia,

Only a few months ago, an eye-opening breakthrough study at the University of Pennsylvania, excited the leukemia world. Here's why! With only three subjects for the study, the findings were that striking, that it has created a new hope for the treatment of CLL (chronic lymphocytic leukemia) and other cancers. The patients were in advanced stages of CLL, with few other treatment options. Researchers took patients' T-cells, then genetically modified them to attack cancer cells, and injected them back into the patients, after chemotherapy.

"Within three weeks, the tumors had been blown away, in a way that was much more violent than we ever expected," said senior author Carl June, MD, director of Translational Research and a professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in the Abramson Cancer Center, who led the work. "It worked much better than we thought it would."

Patient's tumors disappeared and they went into remission, up to a year so far.

"We saw at least a 1000-fold increase in the number of modified T cells in each of the patients. Drugs don't do that," June says. "In addition to an extensive capacity for self-replication, the infused T cells are serial killers. On average, each infused T cell led to the killing of thousands of tumor cells – and overall, destroyed at least two pounds of tumor in each patient."

The research team have plans to try the same gene manipulaton on other lymphomas, and leukemias. Read the full article here

Time and more trials, and patients, will tell a fuller story, but at this point, it sounds promising for CLL patients right now, and possibly for many others in the coming years.