Opening a new era in cancer care, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved the first treatment that genetically engineers patients' own blood cells into an army of assassins to seek and destroy childhood leukemia. CAR-T treatment uses gene therapy techniques not to fix disease-causing genes but to turbocharge T cells, immune system soldiers that cancer too often can evade. Researchers filter those cells from a patient's blood, reprogram them to harbour a "chimeric antigen receptor" that zeroes in on cancer, and grow hundreds of millions of copies. Returned to the patient, the revved-up cells can continue multiplying to fight disease for months or years. The FDA approved this first treatment that genetically engineers patients' own blood cells to seek and destroy childhood leukemia.

Source: CBC News August 30, 2017 15:26 UTC