Crystal An / Crean Lutheran Saint High school 10th Grade

Developing research has created a treatment that gives hope for a cure for cancer. Popular tactics in fighting the disease, chemo therapy and radiation, attempt to get rid of rapidly growing tumors, but because the treatments target new emerging cells, this causes the termination of all cells? healthy or cancerous. Nausea, vomiting, blood disorders, hair/appetite loss, and nervous system defects are few of the many downsides of the common treatments. This limits patients in fighting cancer, and a new and efficient method of fighting the disease developed at the University of Pennsylvania might be the solution.

This new procedure aims to terminate the cancerous cells only, while keeping the healthy cells intact. Doctors can transmit new genes into the T-cells of the cancer patient, which are vital to the body’s immune system. This change of genetic information creates a new type of cell, the hunter cell, which is programmed to kill the cancer in the patient’s body. As this cell is placed back into the patient’s body, it multiplies into tens of thousands of cells, creating a way for the immune cells to kill cancer. The results as these hunter cells become more popular are immensely positive. Out of 27 patients, 22 children at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and 5 adults from the hospital at the University of Pennsylvania, 24 of the patients responded to the treatment after a cycle of 28 days. Most of the patients went into remission, the disappearance of cancer symptoms. Seeing the positive results from the new treatment, the current concern is whether the patients will stay in their remission will the cancer come back? Hunter cells must be tailored specifically to each patient, which raises another concern cost.

Still, we are now one step closer to finding a cure.