The main cancer treatments have serious negative side-effects on the healthy parts of the body. Radiation and chemotherapy damage healthy cells, and surgery often leaves cancer in the body, allowing it to return. But increasingly doctors are using the body’s own immune system as an effective weapon against the disease. Dr. David Maloney from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle has been taking T-cells from cancer patients, re-engineering them to fight a specific cancer, then injecting them back into the patient’s body. The approach essentially takes a patient’s own cells and turns them into cancer fighting drones. This cancer treatment—if developed further—could be both very safe and effective. As the patient’s own cells only attack the malignant cancer, there isn’t a chance for inadvertent damage of healthy cells.
Doctors teach the body to cure cancer
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