"Smart Gel" kills growing cancer cells
Release date: 2015-11-24 The role of this biogel is that it can coexist with anti-cancer immune cells, which can inject these cells or anti-cancer drugs directly into tumor tissue rather than through blood. Researchers hope that this targeted therapy will improve existing immunotherapy. Immunotherapy is a relatively new treatment that works with the immune system to fight disease. One of the immunotherapy, called tumor cell adoptive therapy, is the use of anti-cancer immune cells to treat cancer. The purpose of adoptive therapy for tumor cells is to increase the number of T lymphocytes or T cells in the body. These cells kill cancer cells, but in general, the number of these cells is not enough to eliminate cancer. Therefore, the tumor cell adoptive therapy is carried out in a laboratory after taking a sample on a patient, and then the cultured T cells are injected into the patient to increase the storage amount of the patient's T cells. Although this therapy has shown its good application prospects, it does not provide enough T cells to completely kill cancer cells. In addition, high doses of interleukin-2 must be administered, which may be toxic to the body. Anti-cancer store Professor Lapointe believes that the advantage of this injectable biogel is that it requires fewer T cells: “Using our technology requires only managing tens of millions of cells, not the billions of cells currently needed.†Another benefit is that you can also manage and manage the compounds involved in the immune system to fight tumors. This gel is non-toxic and provides an ideal environment for immune cells to grow and replicate, acting as a "cell repository" to fight cancer. The researchers successfully tested the use of smart biogels in several tumor tube models, including melanoma and renal cell carcinoma. Finally, Professor Lapointe concluded: "Lymphocytes are functional in the gel and can grow for 2-3 weeks, release from the gel and kill cancer cells." This biogel is made by adding a gelling agent to chitosan and is liquid at room temperature for easy injection. But once inside the body (37 ° C), the gel becomes more cohesive and resistant, like a stretchy stretch fabric. Currently, this biogel needs to be tested on animals before it can enter the human trial phase. If passed these tests, the researchers hope that this biogel can be used in the treatment of cancer patients in a few years. Source: MedSci ShaoXing SurgeCare Medical Products Co., Ltd. , https://www.sxsurgecaremedical.com