<p>On a side note - I think anybody interested in the study/history of cancer, in particular about the battles and trials waged against leukemia by Sidney Farber / Mary Lasker and gang in the 20th century would really do themselves to read Siddhartha Mukherjee’s stirring book: “The Emperor of All Maladies”.</p>
<p>I second the recommendation for The Emperor of All Maladies. I read it recently and found it fascinating. Much more readable than most of the great novels being discusses on the “acclaimed books” thread!</p>
<p>Also excited, and cautiously optimistic, about this apparently effective therapy.</p>
<p>I hate the headlines like that. Cured leukemia? Wiped out leukemia? In 2 out of 3 patients, so far. It is a very promising technology, but it is still years away from being a life-saving treatment.</p>
<p>xiggi: I doubt the FDA will be moved by a study of this size. What about long-term effects? This reminds me of the fiascos of gene-therapy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited, yet as a scientist I’m inheritantly skeptical of anything that is quickly declared “curative” by the media.</p>
<p>CLL is a very different beast than the more common Leukemia - AML and ALL, and what works for CLL may be unique. That said, it is a rather neat piece of science and the result is rather impressive to deserve it’s publication in two of the best journals. The proliferation and duration of the engineered grafted cells are both unprecedented.</p>
<p>padad, as I understand, the “engineered cells” were targeted to CD19 which is also expressed in other hematopoietic malignancies. I’m not an immunologist, but I know that there are companies working on developing CD19-targeted drugs for other types of blood cancers.</p>
<p>Virtually all trials involving cancers have been limited in their size and possibly skewed in their results. As far as the history of cancer trials go - especially one with a such a heated and controversial political history as leukemia - this Penn one can be considered very very successful and promising. As successful and final as a polio vaccine it is not - but as a start, it is very exciting…</p>
<p>Bunsen, Yes, CD19 is on all B cells, but not having B cells is less of a problem for CLL pts than for other B cell cancers. Having the “engineered cells” to persist for this long and work is the key advance. Now one can build in an additional suicide agent so that you can command the engineered cells to kill themselves once their job is done. This additional step is much easier to do, and we know of many ways to do this.</p>
<p>Anything “promising” in the search for a cure for leukemia is good news in my book. 25 years ago my family was devastated by this disease. I sincerely hope that other families can be spared the grief that mine has endured.</p>
<p>It also looks like the authors are pretty diligent about patenting their discoveries (which is a good thing). I wonder who they are going to partner with to bring the treatment to the market.</p>
<p>Gleevec is closer to a traditional cancer drug, although it’s the first of a new class of drugs. It’s a relatively simple chemical. </p>
<p>By contrast, this new experimental procedure isn’t a drug in the normal sense. They injected living, growing white blood cells that originated from the patient’s own body and had been modified to specifically destroy the cancer cells.</p>