Advanced Melanoma Eradicated With 5 Billion Copies of One Immune Cell

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Researchers used 5 billion copies of a single cell from a man's immune system to eradicate signs of advanced melanoma for more than two years, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Copies of an infection-fighting CD4 T cell were grown in a laboratory, and then used for a massive attack on the 52-year-old patient's tumor, the report said.

...

More than 62,000 people in the U.S. will be diagnosed in 2008 with melanoma, the most common and deadly form of skin cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. Almost 8,500 patients will die from it this year.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home

[Niels Bohr 72]

Interesting. Why can't they do it with AIDS? Maviro?

[HAL 9000 96]

B/C cancer and most other diseases don't mutate like HIV does. To get it right with this kind of therapy for HIV you'd need to get those 5 billion cells to have varying degrees of gene expression to be able to adapt to infected cells and also adapt to the viral proteins that attach to immune cells to begin with.

I also assume the cloned cells came from the same patient in that report.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

B/C cancer and most other diseases don't mutate like HIV does. To get it right with this kind of therapy for HIV you'd need to get those 5 billion cells to have varying degrees of gene expression to be able to adapt to infected cells and also adapt to the viral proteins that attach to immune cells to begin with.

I also assume the cloned cells came from the same patient in that report.

Only ONE cell was source--hard to imagine ONE cell coming from multiple donors, eh. The other 4,999,999,999 were all copies of the source.

[Peikko 1,575]

That's not what he said, he simply said that he assumed that the cloned cells originated from the patient and not some random other guy/gal.

I heard about this today. Seems like a really great possibility. Keep working on it science guys!

[HAL 9000 96]

B/C cancer and most other diseases don't mutate like HIV does. To get it right with this kind of therapy for HIV you'd need to get those 5 billion cells to have varying degrees of gene expression to be able to adapt to infected cells and also adapt to the viral proteins that attach to immune cells to begin with.

I also assume the cloned cells came from the same patient in that report.

Only ONE cell was source--hard to imagine ONE cell coming from multiple donors, eh. The other 4,999,999,999 were all copies of the source.

We're talking about varying the gene expression profile the phenotype)- not the content of the genome (genotype).

Even cloned cells can differentiate into gradients depending on 1) timing, 2) distance to original clone, and 3) the extracelllar conditions around the cells.

I should know a thing or two about various cell types and mitotic replication... its standard cell culture.