UKC

Astonishing work from Great Ormond Street using T-Cells to kill all the other (including cancerous) T-Cells while using a 'cloaking device' so the good guys didn't kill each other, followed by a bone marrow transplant to restart the immune system.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-63859184

As Alyssa's mum said, "You can do that?!"

When they announced the Human Genome Project in 1990, my reaction was, they will never do that given the technology available at the time and if they do, what use will it be.

However this year they finally announced the complete human sequence, and we've had vaccines and miraculous cancer cures (although Alyssa is not completely out of the woods yet apparently).

Such a great story of international multi-disciplinary cooperation.

I saw that report, too. Amazing stuff.

I assume the modified t-cells have a finite life, otherwise, won't they just attack whatever immune system they transplant in?

Yeah I was wondering about that after I posted. I guess they either have to suicide themselves somehow or else get zapped by radiation before the transplant. The whole thing is so far beyond my understanding. Usually with technical stuff I feel I have some basic understanding of how it might work, but every time I dive into a bit more biology I get swamped by the breadth and depth of the material and the underlying basic concepts. Irritating.

Hopefully, one of our resident biogeneticists will be along to explain.

We'd need a passing common or garden oncologicalimmunogeneticist, nothing very specialist

Ten a penny on UKC.