TRANSPLANTS of specially grown immune cells that home in on tumour cells
could help cure leukaemia, and possibly a wide variety of other cancers,
too.
In people with leukaemia, the bone marrow—the tissue that gives rise to
blood and immune cells—becomes cancerous. The usual treatment is to
destroy the cancerous tissue and replace it with matched marrow to avoid any
chance of immune rejection. But almost 20 years ago, oncologists made the
surprising discovery that patients were much less likely to suffer a relapse if
the transplant was less than a perfect match.
The reason is that some…
