Dr. Stanley Riddell’s team at the Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center earned themselves a place in medical history. U.S. researchers used genetically modified T-cells in 35 terminally ill
patients with leukemia, and 94 percent went into remission. Riddell’s
T-cell research has only been applied to blood cancer but for the thousands of people in the United States alone suffering from blood cancer, this treatment could be the medical innovation they have waited years for. It is important to remember that the patients for this trial were all
terminal, which meant they were incredibly weak even as their newly
trained T-cells tried to fight against the more aggressive cancer cells.
Even though this research still has a long way to go before it becomes a
typical cancer treatment, the attention that the stunning success rate
has garnered will no doubt spark a wave of funding for similar T-cell
therapy projects. There are dozens of top research institutions working
around the clock to test experimental treatments and Riddell’s team is
not the only one investigating the efficacy of engineering cells to
fight off cancer attacks.
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