Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's
Abramson Cancer Centre in the US engineered a technique that involved leukemia patients being treated with their own T cells - a type of white blood cell - that have been genetically modified to attack and destroy tumours within their bodies.
The treatment was so powerful that tumours were "blown away" in under a month with few side effects, the Daily Mail reported.
After removing the patient's T cells, the researchers reprogrammed them to attack tumours by binding to a protein expressed by cancerous cells.
In most forms of cancer these crucial cells are unable to distinguish tumour cells from healthy tissue, which allows the cancer to spread unchecked. But they managed to reprogramme them to attack tumour cells by inserting a "secret ingredient" - a protein called a chimeric antigen receptor .
When this protein is on the surface of the T cells, it will bind with another protein, called CD19, which is found in leukemia tumour cells. By doing this it not only kills the cancer cells, but causes other T cells to rapidly multiply so they can attack the tumour too.
Professor Carl June, senior author of the study, said, "The infused T cells are serial killers. On average each fused T cell led to the killing of thousands of tumour cells - and overall, destroyed at least one kilo of tumour in each patient."
