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New cancer therapy completely destroyed advanced tumors in only 6 days

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By Mark Waghorn via SWNS

A new cancer therapy has completely destroyed advanced ovarian and bowel tumors - in just six days.

Results on mice were described as "very exciting." Clinical trials are expected to begin in the next few months.

Pinhead-sized drug factories were delivered to give continuous, high bursts of a protein that boosts the immune system.

Co-author Dr. Omid Veiseh, of Rice University in Houston, said: "We just administer once, but they keep making the dose every day, where it's needed until the cancer is eliminated.

"Once we determined the correct dose - how many factories we needed - we were able to eradicate tumors in 100% of animals with ovarian cancer and in seven of eight animals with colorectal cancer."

They could be used to fight the most lethal cancers - including those of the pancreas, liver and lungs.

The tiny beads have a protective shell containing cells engineered to produce interleukin-2.

They can be implanted with minimally invasive surgery - and could be tested on patients by autumn.

A key design criteria was to get them into hospitals as quickly as possible.

The US team chose only components that had previously proven safe for humans.

Bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in the UK, claiming 16,600 lives annually.

Ovarian cancer is particularly lethal as it is usually only diagnosed in the late stages.

It kills more than 4,000 British women annually. There are around 7,500 new cases each year.

The drug-producing beads were placed next to tumors in lab rodents and within the peritoneum.

This is a sac-like lining that supports the intestines, ovaries and other abdominal organs. It limited exposure to interleukin-2 elsewhere.

Co-author Professor Amir Jazaeri, of Texas University, said: "A major challenge in the field of immunotherapy is to increase tumor inflammation and anti-tumor immunity while avoiding systemic side effects of cytokines and other pro-inflammatory drugs.

"In this study, we demonstrated that the 'drug factories' allow regulatable local administration of interleukin-2 and eradication of tumour in several mouse models, which is very exciting.

"This provides a strong rationale for clinical testing."

Interleukin-2 is a cytokine, a protein the immune system uses to recognise and fight disease.

It has been approved as a cancer treatment by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Lead author Amanda Nash, a graduate student in Dr. Veiseh's lab, said the beads provoke the strongest immune response to date.

She said: "If you gave the same concentration of the protein through an IV pump, it would be extremely toxic.

"With the drug factories, the concentration we see elsewhere in the body, away from the tumor site, is actually lower than what patients have to tolerate with IV treatments. The high concentration is only at the tumor site."

Ms. Nash said it opens the door to the same general approach to treat cancers of the pancreas, liver, lungs and other organs.

The beads would be put by tumors and within the linings that surround affected organs.

If a different cytokine is needed to target a specific form of cancer, the beads can be loaded with engineered cells that make that immunotherapeutic compound.

The bead's outer shell shields its cytokine-producing cells from immune attacks.

The shells are made of materials the immune system recognises as foreign objects but not as immediate threats.

Dr. Veiseh said: "We found foreign body reactions safely and robustly turned off the flow of cytokine from the capsules within 30 days.

"We also showed we could safely administer a second course of treatment should it become necessary in the clinic."

Avenge Bio, a Massachusetts-based startup co-founded by Dr. Veiseh, has licensed the cytokine-factory technology from Rice.

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