Gene therapy helps rats beat tumour

摘要

Rats with an aggressive form of human brain cancer have been successfully treated with gene therapy that "trains" the immune system to attack tumours. The results could pave the way for human trials early next year, say researchers who developed the system at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Previous attempts to treat glioblastomas with gene therapy failed because some tumour cells survived and regrew. The new treatment overcomes this problem by permanently priming the immune system to pick off any straggler tumour cells.