angeles cruz martinez
Newspaper La Jornada
Thursday November 24, 2022, p. 16
Scientific research has achieved through a genetic modification
made in the laboratory, that the cells of the defense system of people with some types of cancer acquire the ability to recognize the disease and counteract it. It is a mechanism known by its acronym in English: CAR-T (T cells with chimeric antigen receptors), explained Alejandro Madrigal, a Mexican specialist and world leader in stem cell transplantation.
The researcher, who is currently a professor at University College London and a physician at the Royal Free Hospital Cancer Institute, in England, developed the CAR-T immunotherapy, CAR-NK GENiCAR
, which has shown efficacy in curing some types of leukemia and multiple myeloma. He commented that the United States Food and Medicine Administration (FDA) has authorized the use of six CAR-T for different neoplasms, but there are more than a thousand trials in the world in search of treatments for other malignant tumors. .
We are still in its infancy when it comes to cell therapy, but without a doubt this is the future of medicine.
said the expert, who at the invitation of the Sanofi pharmaceutical laboratory is visiting Mexico and last night gave a lecture to doctors specializing in bone marrow transplants in the country.
In the morning, the researcher commented that cell therapy against cancer began to be developed in the 1970s, based on the work of Donnall Thomas, who performed the first bone marrow transplant, for which he obtained the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1990.
Autologous substitutions with cells from the same patient and allogeneic cells donated by other people arose. Scientific research has continued until reaching cell therapy or immunotherapy.
The one that has been developed in the Madrigal work group and consists of obtaining a unit of blood from a cancer patient to submit it to a process of genetic engineering, through which a gene that encodes (creates) a CAR-T protein is introduced. . This has the ability to recognize the tumor cell and send the sign
defense system (lymphocytes) to activate against cancer.
Antibodies that recognize tumor cells
The expert commented that there are some limitations of the therapy, among others, that to be successful there must be antibodies that recognize the tumor cell and we don’t have many
. Hence, for now, CAR-T treatments have only been able to be developed for certain types of leukemia and multiple myeloma.
The advantage of being able to obtain a modified (edited) cell from the failed lymphocytes in the laboratory is that it is endowed with that capacity to eliminate the neoplasia.
Alejandro Madrigal commented that ongoing clinical trials in various countries are looking for CAR-T against solid tumors, such as breast tumors caused by the HER2 protein. In this case, the challenge is that this substance is also expressed in the heart, so there is a risk that eliminating the cancer will also cause serious cardiac complications.
