Sep 15, 2024
A New Gene Therapy Reprograms Cancer Cells to Fight Themselves
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: biotech/medical
Even with these upgrades and alternatives, a tumor’s protective shield is still difficult to penetrate. This month, a team from Asgard Therapeutics and Lund University took a clever new approach to tackle tumors from within. The work was.
Using a technology called cellular reprogramming, the team transformed tumor cells in mice into a type of immune cell called cDC1 cells. These cells are master regulators of the immune system. They’re rare inside tumors but when present can trigger powerful immune responses that eat away at the cancer’s protective shield and recruit T cells to the target.
Mice treated with the gene therapy remained cancer-free for at least 100 days and resisted cancer resurgence in a lab test.