Transforming immune killer T-cells into super soldiers to fight against cancer
Creating super soldiers of specific white blood cells to boost an anti-tumor response has been shown in a series of elegant experiments by Princess Margaret researchers.
Research led by Ph.D. candidate Helen Loo Yau, Post-doctoral fellow Dr. Emma Bell and Senior Scientist Dr. Daniel D. De Carvalho describes a DNA modifying epigenetic therapy that can transform immune killer T-cells into super soldiers by boosting their ability to kill cancer cells.
Their findings could potentially enhance immunotherapy, a new paradigm in cancer treatment currently effective for a minority of cancer patients. Some patients respond well to immunotherapy, with their tumours drastically shrinking in size, but others respond only partially or not at all. Clinicians and scientists around the world are working to understand why immunotherapy only helps some patients.
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A single genetic test can identify the presence and cause of mismatch repair deficiency
Researchers have developed a new integrated genetic/epigenetic DNA-sequencing protocol known as MultiMMR that can identify the presence and cause of mismatch repair (MMR) deficiency in a single test from a small sample of DNA in colon, endometrial, and other cancers. This alternative to complex, multi-step testing workflows can also determine causes of MMR deficiency often missed by current clinical tests. Their results are presented in the
Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, published by Elsevier.
MMR genes monitor and repair errors that can occur in normal cell replication and recombination. In some inherited and acquired cancers, one or more of the MMR genes are deactivated. The impact of MultiMMR is broad. Tumors with MMR deficiency respond well to new cancer immunotherapies, explains lead investigator Trevor J. Pugh, PhD, Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto; Princess M
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IMAGE: Researchers have developed a new integrated genetic/epigenetic DNA-sequencing protocol known as MultiMMR that can identify the presence and cause of mismatch repair (MMR) deficiency in a single test from a. view more
Credit: Trevor J. Pugh
Philadelphia, January 21, 2021 - Researchers have developed a new integrated genetic/epigenetic DNA-sequencing protocol known as MultiMMR that can identify the presence and cause of mismatch repair (MMR) deficiency in a single test from a small sample of DNA in colon, endometrial, and other cancers. This alternative to complex, multi-step testing workflows can also determine causes of MMR deficiency often missed by current clinical tests. Their results are presented in the