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Cloned Immune Cells Battle Deadly Skin Cancer

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SUNCOAST NEWS STAFF REPORT

Published: June 25, 2008

In a small-scale study on which researchers plan to expand, a component of the human immune system was turned into what initially appears to be a potent weapon against a deadly form of skin cancer.

Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, in Seattle, say they took CD4+ T cells from a man with advance melanoma, cloned them to produce a massive amount of the cells and then infused them back into the 52-year-old male patient. By the time the man underwent the experimental treatment the cancer had already spread to the lymph nodes in his groin and a lung.

This usually produces a grim prognosis.

As researchers led by Dr. Cassian Yee of the Hutchinson Center's clinical research division reported in the June 19 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, however, CT and PET scans on the patient taken two months after the treatment could find no evidence of tumors. The man remained cancer free two years later.

The patient received no sort of therapy to boost the effectiveness of the cloned T cells before or after they were administered, Yee noted.

"We were surprised by the anti-tumor effect of these CD4 T cells and its duration of response," Yee said.

Researchers have been experimenting with such immunotherapeutic techniques for treating cancer because they tend to have fewer side effects than more conventional treatments, such as anti-cancer drugs and radiation.

The patient who was the subject of the journal report was one of only nine people with advanced melanoma taking part in a clinical study. The success with the patient will have to be tested on patients in a much larger group, Yee stressed.

Yee and his colleagues at his lab, plus the University of Washington School of Medicine and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, in New York, used cloning techniques to create 5 billion CD4+ T cells to inject in the study subject. The white blood cells were genetically engineered to attach to an antigen, or small protein molecule, on the surface of the melanoma cells known as NY-ESO-1.

Yee and his team discovered the T cells were able to attack the skin cancer cells that lacked the NY-ESO-1 antigen. Subsequent tests showed the T cells were able to target to other tumor antigens.

The Burroughs-Wellcome Foundation, Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, Edson Foundation and National Cancer Institute funded the study by Yee and his colleagues.

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