GIRL WITH LEUKAEMIA HELPED BY GENE-EDITING TREATMENT

GIRL WITH LEUKAEMIA HELPED BY GENE-EDITING TREATMENT 


By Alfonso Kasongo 

Experimental Genome Editing therapy called CRISPR technique has promised against aggressive leukaemia in which a girl with the condition is responding positively to treatment. 

A 13-year-old girl whose leukaemia had not responded to other treatments now has no detectable cancer cells after receiving a dose of immune cells that were genetically edited to attack the cancer at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London

After receiving a dose ,a teenager with aggressive leukaemia now has no detectable cancer cells ,now becoming the first person to receive a treatment for the condition that involves a new kind of genome editing, CRISPR called base editing.

Robert Chiesa, one of the doctors treating Alyssa, in a statement released by Great Ormond Street Hospital in London says ,"this is quite remarkable, although it is still a preliminary result, which needs to be monitored and confirmed over the next few months." 

As part of a trial, the 13-year-old,  Alyssa received a dose of immune cells from a donor that had been modified to attack the cancer and twenty-eight days later, tests revealed she was in "remission,"  a period of time when the cancer is responding to treatment or is under control.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2350806-experimental-crispr-technique-has-promise-against-aggressive-leukaemia/

Leukaemia is caused by immune cells in the bone marrow multiplying out of control. It is usually treated by killing all bone marrow cells with chemotherapy and then replacing the bone marrow with a transplant.

This is successful in most cases. If it fails, doctors can try an approach known as CAR-T therapy.

This involves adding a gene to a type of immune cell known as a T cell that causes it to seek out and destroy cancerous cells. The modified cells are known as CAR-T cells.

Initially, all CAR-T treatments involved removing a person’s own T cells, modifying them and replacing them in that individual. If T cells from another person are used, they attack every cell in the recipient’s body. This personalised approach is extremely expensive and often it isn’t possible to obtain enough T cells to create CAR-T cells when an individual is very ill.

To overcome these drawbacks, different groups of doctors have been gene-editing T cells so that those from a single donor can be used to treat many people.




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