Researchers in Milan eye gene therapy to combat cancer

MILAN (Xinhua) - A group of researchers in Milan have tracked a type of genetically modified lymphocytes, or immune cells that help the body destroy invaders, able to survive in patients for many years, which they said could lead to developments in the fight against cancer.

The discovery was made possible thanks to a gene therapy clinical trial carried out in 1995 on a group of young patients, currently aged between 18 and 28, who suffered from an inherited immunodeficiency.

The patients received infusions of a type of lymphocytes, called T memory stem cells, genetically modified to correct the mutation that had caused the immunodeficiency.

"We have monitored the gene-corrected lymphocytes for 10 years and found that they were able to persist and preserve their potential," Alessandro Aiuti, a doctor of the San Raffaele-Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy (TIGET) in the Italian northern city which conducted the study, explained to Xinhua.

Thanks to the research, published in the US journal Science Translational Medicine, "we know now that these genetically modified immune cells can survive for a lot of years," Aiuti said.

"In fact our research was made over a genetic disease, but applications could be about infectious diseases, such as HIV, and especially cancer," he told Xinhua.

"That is to say that we could genetically modify lymphocytes to make them able to combat cancer for a long time," he stressed.

The treatment would be effective both on children and adults,  Aiuti also added.

"We made our experiment on children as it was about a genetic disease, which is our field of study, but the same principle can be applied to adults," he went on explaining.

Aiuti wished that the Italian finding will be used by other groups of researchers in the world to develop immune therapies against cancer. Currently there are similar studies being carried out in the Unites States and in China with remarkable results, he noted.

Regarding China, Aiuti said the Asian country is in the forefront in this type of experimental gene therapies and can be an important reference point for international experts who he hopes will increasingly join hands for research.