Singapore Medicine - Breakthrough Development of Cell Therapy Treatment f... (eadingmedhub1.asp onclick linkClick( th...)

Singapore Medicine - Breakthrough Development of Cell Therapy Treatment for Cancer

Date:10/29/2008

eadingmedhub1.asp" onclick="linkClick( this.href );" target="_blank" title="T-cell therapy">T-cell therapy process itself is logistically simple for the patient. All that is needed is about 350 ml of blood, about the volume of a coca-cola can. The culturing of T-cells will take a few months and the programmed new cells will be returned over a series of intravenous infusions. It is hoped that this process, coupled with a course of chemotherapy, will significantly extend survival rates.

According to Dr Toh, nasopharyngeal cancer was selected for two reasons: It is the sixth commonest cancer in Singapore, and is endemic in southern China and South East Asia. It also has a detectable weakness - Epstein-Barr related viral proteins are expressed on the surface of NPC cancer cells, which are useful as therapeutic targets.

Epstein-Barr virus or EBV is a member of the herpes virus family. Most people become infected with it at some point in their lives. Of those affected, the majority suffer nothing more than mild afflictions, such as fever, sore throat or swollen lymph glands. However, some carriers of the virus eventually develop nasopharyngeal carcinoma, or cancer.

To date, only two studies have been done on using T-cells to fight NPC. The first was done by the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, while the second was done in Pavia, Italy.

"Singapore is extremely well-placed to perform this trial because NPC is so common in Asia. We can truly become a hub of excellence in this area," says Dr Toh, whose clinical and research team is in frequent contact with the Centre for Cell and Gene Therapy in Houston.

"We are very grateful to be partnering the Centre for Cell and Gene Therapy. They are actively involv
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