TeachableMedicalNews article 07302021
Teachable moment in classrooms:
- cellular basis of life chapter– artificial DNA can direct the cell to make a new type of protein
- cellular basis of life chapter – receptor proteins are located in the plasma membrane
- tissue chapter –the liquid connective tissue nature of blood allows the separation of blood cell types
- immune system chapter – role of T cell in immune defense
The news item: Recently a news report was published about a cancer patient’s fight for her life:
New treatment option for patients battling aggressive form of blood cancer
People battling relapsed or refractory (R/R) Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma, an aggressive blood cancer, experience a challenging treatment journey. But a recently approved CAR T cell therapy gives patients a new option.
The article stated that the patient had B cell lymphoma that didn’t respond to chemotherapy, and that she started a new treatment where her T cells were removed from her blood, reprogrammed to attack her cancer, and then returned into her body. The treatment was described as the CAR T treatment where CAR stood for chimeric antigen receptor.
So, Why Do I Care?? Some leukemia type cancers and lymphoma type cancers do not respond to regular chemotherapy. While the total number of the patients is relatively low (a few thousand), the new approach (CAR T) to cancer treatment now presents a new option for those patients with cancers resisting regular chemotherapy. Knowing how this type of treatment is created allows us to understand treatment regimens such as Kymriah, Yescarta, and Tecartus. In addition, the CAR T treatment type may inspire more out of the box thinking to defeat cancer.
Plain English, Please!!! First, let’s talk about why would we want to train our immune system. In our body only the cells of the immune system are the only ones that can find and destroy specific targets