A cancer therapy that proved effective in
treating several mice with cancer disease will be tested on humans. Clinical
tests begin this week at Wake
Forest University.
The therapy is based on the transfusion of white blood cells from cancer-resistant
donors into cancer patients. The idea is to use these white blood cells in the
fight with cancer, allowing them to attack the tumour and finally beat cancer.
Donors will be selected based on having an
immunes system that produces granulocytes that contain high cancer-fighting
levels. The treatment tested on mice had a 100 cure rate of lab mice affected
by the disease.
Dr. Zheng Cui, the lead investigator and
his team at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine won approvals for
human trials from the Food and Drug Administration.
“In mice, we’ve been able to eradicate even
highly aggressive forms of malignancy with extremely large tumors. Hopefully,
we will see the same results in humans. Our laboratory studies indicate that
this cancer-fighting ability is even stronger in healthy humans,” Dr. Zheng Cui
was quoted as saying by The Independent.
“We don't know what will happen, but we
hope this will cure several types of cancer and help a few people in the next
months. This could be another arrow in the cancer treatment quiver,” Cui said.
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