NY Times: The Race to Create 'Transformative' Cellular Treatments for Cancer

Cellular treatments of cancer received a big media boost this morning with a front page story in the New York Times that said the door is opening on a radical new class of therapy.

The headline on the piece in the print version of the Times in California said,

"Racing to Alter Patients' Cells to Kill Cancer"

The article by Denise Grady was also high on the Internet home page this morning of the Times.

The peg for the lengthy story was the expected approval of gene therapy for leukemia in the next few months. Grady wrote,

"Companies and universities are racing to develop these new therapies, which re-engineer and turbocharge millions of a patient’s own immune cells, turning them into cancer killers that researchers call a 'living drug.' One of the big goals now is to get them to work for many other cancers, including those of the breast, prostate, ovary, lung and pancreas. 

"'This has been utterly transformative in blood cancers,' said Dr. Stephan Grupp, director of the cancer immunotherapy program at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania and a leader of major studies. 'If it can start to work in solid tumors, it will be utterly transformative for the whole field.;'"

High in the story (the fifth paragraph), Grady mentioned that cellular treatments are also being studied in connection with glioblastoma, the type of brain cancer afflicting Sen. John McCain. 

The Times carried a host of caveats about the likely new therapy, its dangers and even deaths that have occurred during the research. But "studies are forging ahead," Grady reported, despite the fact that they are expected to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

The article did not mention the research that has been financed by California stem cell agency, which has pumped $90 million into developing cellular-connected treatments for cancer. The California Stem Cell Report wrote about that effort last week and filed a freelance story on the subject for The Sacramento Bee. 

McCain's Cancer and the California Stem Cell Agency: The Promising Approaches of Genetic Engineering

City of Hope video on T-cell treatment of glioblastoma

The type of aggressive brain cancer that is now afflicting U.S. Sen. John McCain is a disease that has been long targeted by California's $3 billion stem cell agency.

The agency, formally known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), has spent more than $90 million for research dealing with brain cancer, which claims the lives of 13,000 people each year.

Particularly deadly is glioblastoma, the form of cancer involving McCain.

In January, Karen Ring, a stem cell scientist and overseer of CIRM's social media, wrote on the agency's blog about an early stage clinical trial involving glioblastoma, describing it as "a new cell-based therapy that melted away brain tumors in a patient with an advanced stage" of the disease.

The research was conducted at the City of Hope's Alpha Clinic, an effort created by the stem cell agency.

In March, Behnam Badie, who is leading the research, discussed the therapy at a symposium dealing with results from year two of the Alpha Clinic program. Badie, whose father died of brain cancer, described how the use of T-cells beneficially affected the patient, Richard Brady, who was also a surgeon. 

Richard Brady, City of Hope photo

In a video presented at the symposium, Badie's colleague, Christine Brown, described T-cells as the "soldiers of the immune system." Brady also appeared in the video, saying, 

"I find myself in disbelief that I am here." 

On its web site, the agency says,

"Stem cell approaches look promising for treating gliomas. Certain types of stem cell tend to migrate toward the tumor cells wherever they are in the brain. CIRM-funded researchers are trying to genetically engineer those stem cells to produce cancer-killing molecules. Transplanted into the brain, these cells would seek out the cancer cells and deliver their therapy directly where it is needed. This approach could significantly decrease toxic side-effects to normal tissues, preserving or improving the patient's quality of life."

Brady, however, was not cured by his treatment and ultimately succumbed to the spread of the cancer. Ring wrote in January,

"The effects of the immunotherapy lasted for seven-and-a-half months. Unfortunately, his glioblastoma did come back....Patients with advanced cases of glioblastoma like Richard often have only weeks left to live, and the prospect of another seven months of life with family and friends is a gift."