In a major breakthrough in cancer gene therapy, a Northwestern University researcher has endowed immune cells with the ability to specifically target metastatic prostate cancer in mice without causing the toxic immune suppression that has been associated with earlier forms of cancer gene therapy. Chung Lee, John T. Grayhack, M.D., Professor of Urology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and his laboratory group described the adoptive transfer gene therapy technique in the March issue of Cancer Research. Lee is also a researcher at The Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. The researchers first rendered immune cells known as CD8+ T cells insensitive to transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta), a powerful, naturally occurring substance in the body that enables cancer cells to evade surveillance by the body’s immune system. The immunosuppressive effect of TGF-beta in cancer progression is well established.
