Until now, cancer can be regarded as a disease that is almost no cure alias difficult to cure. Various existing treatment is only for reducing the ability of the cancer cell to proliferate. But recently a team of Japanese researchers find new cancer treatments using T cells that can kill cancer cell.
Actually natural T cell or part of the white blood cells that play a key role in the immune system cells are present in everyone's body but in small numbers. Therefore investigators suspect by injecting more T cells in large numbers into the patient's efforts to strengthen the immune system and the body's cells to fight cancer overall.
To create a specific cell called killer T lymphocytes, the research team first had to reprogram specialized T lymphocytes to kill some types of cancer into other types of cells are called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells). IPS cells that produces cancer-specific T lymphocytes.
Nevertheless, earlier studies found the killer T lymphocytes generated in the laboratory using conventional methods are considered less efficient in killing the cancer cells because its life is very short so the use of killer T lymphocytes for the treatment of cancer are limited.
Fortunate researchers had anticipated that constraint. To overcome this problem, a team of researchers from the RIKEN Research Center for Allergy and Immunology, which is also led by Hiroshi Kawamoto T killer lymphocytes to reprogram adult cells into iPS cells and observed how these cells differentiated. You do this by killer T lymphocytes exposes the 'Yamanaka factors' or group of compounds that induce the cells to return to the stage of non-specialization.
Then the iPS cells derived from those grown in the lab and induced to differentiate into T killer lymphocytes. This new type of T lymphocytes has also been shown to specifically with native lymphocytes present in some of the same types of skin cancer.
Not only that, researchers also maintain genetic reorganization of the cell and make killer T lymphocytes are able to express specific receptors on the surface of cancer 'body'. The new T lymphocytes also known actively producing anti-tumor compounds.
"We have successfully developed a cell-antigen specific T cells to make iPS cells and differentiate them to get back into a functional T cells," said Dr. Kawamoto.
"The next step is to test whether these T cells can kill tumor cells selectively, not with other cells in the body. If they can do that these cells can be injected directly into the patient's body for treatment. Fact it is can be realized in the near future, "he continued.