Cancer Could Be Cured Using New 'Seek-And-Destroy' Technique

Cancer could be cured by using a new revolutionary "seek and destroy" technique, experts have revealed.

Photo Insert: The study focused on immune cells called TILs (tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes) which invade cancerous tissue by engaging in a "form of hand-to-hand combat."

The technique uses 3D printed device on the patient's tumor. It harvests and sorts hundreds of millions of cells – increasing the number of "tumor-eater" by five-fold. In experiments on mice, growths dramatically shrank - or completely disappeared.

Prof. Shana Kelley, of Northwestern University, said: "People have been cured in the clinic of advanced melanoma through treatment with their own immune cells that were harvested out of tumor tissue.

"The problem is, because of the way the cells are harvested, it only works in a very small number of patients," she told Callum Hoare of the Daily Express.

The technique is being tipped as revolutionary as most cancer drugs involve toxic chemicals and foreign substances. These cause harmful side effects and can weaken the body's natural defenses. Using tissue from a patient's body can eliminate this risk. The study in Nature Biomedical Engineering focused on immune cells called TILs (tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes).

Kelley said they invade cancerous tissue by engaging in a "form of hand-to-hand combat." She likened it to "someone using insecticide on a weed." Therapies in clinics today use a mixture of "exhausted" and "naive" cells to treat tumors. They are grown in labs far away from the patients they were collected from.

By the time they have multiplied and are ready to be placed back in the body, many are unable to fight - having been in the tumor for too long. With their new technique, Prof Kelley and colleagues used a state-of-the-art technology called MATIC (microfluidic affinity targeting of infiltrating cells).

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