This video is part of Elahe Minaei's entry to a competition run by biotechnology company Promega, which would help to progress her radical research into pancreatic cancer treatment.
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00:00Imagine next time someone tells you she has cancer.
00:12Your reaction could be like this.
00:14Oh, just rest and have plenty of water.
00:17Let your immune system do its job.
00:19You'll be fine in a matter of days.
00:22That's how we react to cold and gastro, right?
00:27What if I tell you we're not too far away from such a reaction to cancer?
00:32Well, the revolutionizing immunotherapy is already turning this dream into reality for
00:39some cancers such as leukemia.
00:42If we imagine immune cells as soldiers of an army, in leukemia, the army has already
00:48started the fight against the cancer.
00:51But they've got to the point where they're exhausted and outnumbered, and they're sending
00:55give-up signals.
00:58Immunotherapy blocks those signals and reinvigorates the immune system, just like energy drinks
01:04packaged in the form of antibodies.
01:06On the other hand, we have pancreatic cancer, my project, one of the most lethal forms of
01:13cancer, where the immune army hasn't noticed the cancer cells because they're too similar
01:19to the body's own cells.
01:21In this scenario, immunotherapy should aim at informing and weaponizing the army and
01:28keeping them energized.
01:30That requires a combination of treatments, which can be too toxic if given through blood
01:36streams, because they raise a large army everywhere in the body where they attack everything including
01:43healthy organs.
01:45This can be fatal.
01:48What if we could harness immune system where it's needed?
01:52That's exactly what I'm doing in my PhD, and I've got some exciting results.
01:57I made these small biocompatible implantable devices using a 3D bioprinter, loaded them
02:04with multiple immunotherapies, and inserted them right next to the tumor in a pancreatic
02:09mouse model.
02:10While the systemic treatment into the blood vessels was too toxic and lethal, the implants
02:17showed superior safety, and it effectively restrained tumor growth compared to the untreated
02:23group.
02:24Our ultimate aim is to insert these implants into the tumors of pancreatic cancer patients
02:30using endoscopy.
02:33Now the beauty of this localized approach is that it only raises an army where they
02:38need it to be, around the tumor, and because it's localized immunotherapy, once the war
02:44is over, the remaining soldiers are more empowered, and they have a memory of the cancer cells,
02:51so if cancer recur, they immediately recognize it, and will just have to rest and let our
02:58immune system fight the cancer.