<story><title>Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish</title><url>https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603502/two-infants-treated-with-universal-immune-cells-have-their-cancer-vanish/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jackweirdy</author><text>&amp;gt; Although the cases drew wide media attention in Britain, some researchers said that because the London team also gave the children standard chemotherapy, they failed to show the cell treatment actually cured the kids.&lt;p&gt;Could someone explain what the process for proving it would be in this case? I presume some kind of animal testing?&lt;p&gt;Seems pretty immoral to give someone a wildcard treatment and not back it up with something known to work. Not disparaging this treatment but given we don&amp;#x27;t know if it works yet (and how aggressive cancer can be) it seems totally fair to administer it alongside chemo.</text></comment>
<story><title>Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish</title><url>https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603502/two-infants-treated-with-universal-immune-cells-have-their-cancer-vanish/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>blisterpeanuts</author><text>Happy babies!  As a point of interest, this type of engineered T-cell treatment has its roots in research at the Weizmann Institute in Tel Aviv.  They demonstrated the use of CARs modified T-cells in curing leukemic disease in rats and mice several years ago.&lt;p&gt;Their research was expanded to human trials at Univ. of Penn. where 27 of 29 patients with incurable leukemia and most of whom had a prognosis of death within a few months went into remission and showed no sign of the disease.&lt;p&gt;This modality may work with other forms of cancer; engineered T-cells that can enter every capillary in the body could potentially wipe out entire colonies of cancer cells.  The potential is enormous, as are the challenges; cancers can be very difficult to differentiate from healthy tissue.&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.timesofisrael.com&amp;#x2F;breakthrough-cancer-cure-has-deep-israeli-roots&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.timesofisrael.com&amp;#x2F;breakthrough-cancer-cure-has-de...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>