Trial Begun of Use of Gene Therapy to Fight Colorectal Cancer

Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers have begun clinical trials on an approach designed to use gene therapy to fight colorectal cancer.

The approach, known as tumor immunization, uses genes to make the cancer cells look foreign to the body's immune system, which then attacks and destroys the cancer.

In experiments with laboratory animals, Mount Sinai researchers report their approach extended life in all animals tested and wiped out cancer entirely in up to 20 percent of animals whose cancer had spread from the colon to the liver.

"Cancer cells are able to grow unimpeded by the body's defenses because they look very similar to healthy cells, with only very subtle differences that pass under the radar screen of the body's immune cells," said Savio Woo, PhD, Director of the Carl C. Icahn Center for Gene Therapy and Molecular Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

"We use gene transfer technology to insert a gene into the cancer cells that makes them visible to the body's natural immune defenses," Woo added.

The first phase of a clinical trial to establish the safety of these treatments in humans began recently.

Other Sources: Mount Sinai