Scientists, including one of Indian-origin, have engineered T-cells, that play a central role in cell-mediated immunity, to recognise and destroy pancreatic tumours.
Researchers breached the cancer's physical and immunological walls using immunotherapy, a type of treatment that harnesses or refines the body's own immune system with T-cells engineered to find and destroy cancer cells.
Sunil Hingorani, from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in US and his colleagues created T cells with a high affinity to a relatively tumour-specific antigen.
Notoriously difficult pancreatic tumour cells do not produce many unique proteins that allow for completely tumour-specific T cells, researchers said.
Instead, the team had to look for proteins that are expressed in unusually large amounts in the tumour cells and minimally expressed elsewhere. The T cells then were engineered to attack those.
But there was a potential problem, researchers said. The mesothelial protein they targeted can also be found in the linings of the heart and lungs.
However, in tests on mice with pancreatic tumours and immune system responses nearly identical to those in humans, the engineered infused T cells parked only briefly in those linings (without harming them) and then moved along to attack the tumour cells.
They killed the tumour cells over a 10-day period, as did subsequent infusions.
Additionally, researcher developed an enzyme that can help defeat the tumour's high interstitial pressures and potentially open the door for greater penetration and effectiveness of T cells and other types of agents.
By the end of the year, Hingorani hopes to have the human version of the T cell in clinical trials.
