Donor T-Cells Reprogrammed to Fight Leukemia
At
just 14-weeks-old, Layla Richards was diagnosed with leukemia last year,
according to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.
Though doctors were initially unable to treat her--even following a bone marrow
transplant--an experimental treatment involving "retrained" donor
T-cells to ward off infection in the body helped attack the girl's cancer and
save her life.
Health
officials took donated blood and separated the white blood cells--known as
T-cells, which normally help in fighting infections in the body--and edited the
cells' genes; this gave the cells the ability to attack the cancer. Then, they
injected the cells into Layla.
Meanwhile,
TALEN,
a genetic technique that stands for transcription activator-like effector
nuclease, helped to sequence specific sections of the DNA from the donated
blood cells.
With future testing, the genetically edited
T-cells may one day be used to help adults and children with blood cell cancers
and neuroblastoma--a cancer found in the adrenal glands.
Cooling Cap Reduces Hair Loss during Chemotherapy
The
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared the first cooling cap to reduce
hair loss (alopecia) for female breast cancer patients undergoing chemothearpy
in the United States, according to a news release.
Complete
or partial hair loss is a common side-effect of chemotherapy due to rapidly
dividing cells (including healthy and cancerous cells) targeted by the
chemotherapy. With the help of the cooling cap, which circulates cooled liquid
to the head during treatment, blood vessels in the scalp are constricted,
reducing the amount of chemotherapy that reaches cells in the hair follicles
(hair roots).
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