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Gene therapy may save us from cancer

01/Oct/2006: 41-year old Thomas May, from Allen Park, Michigan, was saved from his advanced-stage skin cancer, with the help of gene therapy, which proved that gene therapy could be an effective treatment to stop tumor growth in cancer patients. An engineer with Ford Motor Company, May, was one among the 17 melanoma patients to receive an experimental gene therapy, in United States.

He and another man from Wisconsin responded to this new treatment and show no signs of melanoma now. Melanoma is one of the rarer forms of skin cancer, which causes a majority of skin cancer– related deaths.

Patients suffering from melanoma lack Cytotoxic T cells (a subset of T-cell) in their body, which destroys tumor cells. In this study, blood cells drawn from 17 participants, suffering from advanced-stage melanoma, was mixed with the genes of another person, who had cytotoxic T cells in his body.

The cells were then cultured in a lab and introduced in to the melanoma patients through intravenous infusion. May and another patient responded to this treatment and the results of this study were published in the journal Science. The results of this study prove that gene therapy can indeed be used for treating cancer effectively.

Dr. Steven Rosenberg, the leader of this study, said that gene therapy provides an opportunity to reinforce human cells, which do not have the mechanisms to fight cancer. He added that nearly 600,000 Americans die every year of cancer, even though many new approaches to fight cancer were being developed continuously.

This study drew worldwide attention, when it was published in journal science, as the findings are very significant in today’s context.
K Siva

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