A revolution in cancer treatment is here. In today’s edition, we take a look at CAR-T cell therapy or how to reprogram T lymphocytes to battle cancer. Monoclonal antibodies and CAR T cells are two immunotherapy strategies that harness the patient's own immune system to help fight against cancer cells.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Some science news for you now, and there has been a significant advancement in the fight against cancer.
00:05 It's called CAR T cell therapy, and it's a rapidly developing cellular immunotherapy strategy that holds great promise.
00:12 It's trying to combat cancer by harnessing a patient's own immune system.
00:17 We're going to talk about all of this now with Julia Seeger, who joins me on set.
00:20 Julia, first of all, just break it down for us. What is immunotherapy, first of all?
00:23 Well, immunotherapy is a new type of cancer treatment.
00:26 As you said, it's considered to be one of the greatest breakthroughs in the last decade.
00:30 It won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2018, and it's a targeted therapy, if you will.
00:37 It's a targeted therapy, and the way it works is that when...
00:40 So I have to explain to you how the immune system works.
00:43 So the way the immune system works is that when your body is faced with a pathogen,
00:49 let it be bacteria, viruses, or allergens, our bodies have several lines of defenses, right?
00:57 So the first barrier is the skin, of course, and those pathogens, if they do enter the body,
01:04 and maybe we can take a look at this, which explains how the immune system works,
01:10 because I think you will understand better, Jeanne, if we take a look.
01:14 Maybe we can bring it up, but the idea is really to modify certain cells of the patient.
01:20 So here you can see that if the body is faced with a pathogen, it has several lines of defenses.
01:25 The first one, of course, is the skin, but if the pathogen enters the body,
01:28 then the immune system takes over, and kind of like a security checkpoint at the airport,
01:34 it's going to scan every cell, and it's going to be able to identify whether the cell is healthy or unhealthy.
01:39 If it's unhealthy, it's given the order to destroy it.
01:42 Now, the problem, Jeanne, with cancerous cells is that the immune system can't recognize it as being an unhealthy cell.
01:49 The reason why is because it has a camouflage capability thanks to a protein called PD-L1.
01:55 So the immune system can't recognize it as being something unhealthy, that it needs to be destroyed.
02:00 And immunotherapy, the whole goal is to be able to awaken that immune system.
02:05 And so scientists have found two ways of awakening the immune system. What are they?
02:09 Well, there are several ways, and indeed two of them. I'd like to touch on that.
02:14 First, you can inject what we call monoclonal antibodies.
02:18 So you've heard of it because of COVID-19.
02:20 This is how Donald Trump, for instance, was one of the treatments that he received for COVID-19.
02:24 The way it works is that you're going to create antibodies in the lab that are capable of recognizing the cancerous tumor,
02:32 but also of attaching, binding to that tumor, and kind of like sticking a flag in it.
02:36 Either those antibodies are going to be able to get rid of the tumor, or it's going to induce an immunity reaction.
02:43 So it's going to tell the lymphocyte T's to come and destroy that tumor.
02:49 The second technique, and this is what I wanted to tell you about today, is CAR T-cell therapy.
02:53 It's considered a revolution. Now here, you're going to take the T lymphocytes of the patient.
02:58 You're going to modify it in the lab so that it's going to now have on its surface a molecule,
03:04 kind of like an antenna, if you will, that's going to be able to recognize the cancerous cell and open it like a key, and then destroy it.
03:12 So this is a huge breakthrough. We have stunning results.
03:16 It's only used at least here in France on two different blood cancers.
03:19 The first one is it's used for adults and children alike with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
03:25 And the second cancer is a diffuse large cell B lymphomas.
03:30 And of course, the goal is to be able to extend this type of therapy to other types of cancers.
03:35 Julia, thank you so much. It's great to know that there are those incredible revolutions happening,
03:39 especially when it comes to something like cancer with the CAR T-cell revolution.
03:42 Thank you so much, Julia Seeger.