Learning From the Heart
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June Edition: CAR-T cell Therapy
By: Iris Tobias and Sophia Barnathan
What is cancer?
Cancer is a disease in which the body's cells grow uncontrollably.
This can happen due to mutated cells going through checkpoints during mitosis, which offer cell regulatory process, in turn allowing cells to divide uncontrollably.
This can also occur via genetic mutations that disrupt the normal cell cycle, causing cells to grow and divide and survive indefinitely without cell death occurring (mutations can be genetic, from environmental factors or carcinogenic).
WHAT IS LYMPHOMA?
Lymphoma is a type of blood cancer that affects the lymphatic system which is part of the body’s immune system and fights off germs.
It includes the lymph nodes, lymphatic vessels, lymphatic fluid, and lymphoid organs like the spleen, thymus, tonsils, and bone marrow.
Lymphoma takes over the immune system which causes the body’s defense mechanism to malfunction while making you vulnerable to infections.
WHAT IS CAR T-CELL THERAPY?
CAR T-cell therapy is an immunotherapy that engineers a person’s own T cells to attack cancer cells.
What sets CAR T-cell therapies apart from other immunotherapies and cancer treatments is that they’re made from a patient’s own T-cells. These CAR-T cells are the body’s primary killer of infected and other diseased cells.
Naturally, T cells can’t really recognize cancer because cancer cells form from a person’s own mutated tissue.
With CAR T-cell therapy, a patient’s T cells are genetically reprogrammed in a lab to produce proteins called Chimeric Antigen Receptors (CARs).
The CAR binds to a specific target antigen on the surface of the cancer cell. The physical contact pulls the CAR proteins together and clusters them on the surface of the T cell.
This creates a chain reaction, sending an activation signal through the membrane and into the T cell’s nucleus.
Activated CAR T cells then go to work destroying targeted cancer cells.
CAR-T cell therapy achieves complete remission in 50% to 74% of patients with relapsed or refractory lymphomas.
CAR-T cell treated 34,000 patients in the US as early as 2024.
Quality of life- While physical health can decline immediately after infusion, it can typically improve around the 6 month mark.Rich Gingerelli was a retired firefighter when he got his first cancer diagnosis at the age of 50.
17 years later he received his second cancer diagnosis with a new weapon, his own CAR T cells.
Now Rich is in remission, whereas before he would have been incurable.
“With a single treatment, these engineered T-cells are able to search and destroy every last cancer cell,” says Dr. Reshef, director of translational research and blood and marrow transplantation at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia. “We’re seeing patients, who were once incurable, live for many years after a CAR T infusion. It’s unprecedented.”
Down sides/ effects of CAR-T cell treatment…
CRS- cytokine release syndrome- can cause fever, organ failure, neurotoxicity
Can cause blood and immune system issues in some patients
Unfortunately cases of a cancerous replace are 40% to 60%
Sources
https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/research/car-t-cells
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/car-t-cell-therapy/about/pac-20585020
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/treatment-types/immunotherapy/car-t-cell.html
What is the Hillel Yeshiva Research Club?