The treatment that gave Hollywood legend Sam Neill renewed hope in his battle with cancer could soon become available to millions of patients.
Australian scientists are developing the next generation of CAR-T therapy, transforming the way cancer is treated.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Breakthrough cancer therapy offers new hope
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“I’ve just had a scan just now and there is no cancer in my body. That’s an extraordinary thing,” Neill said in April this year.
CAR-T therapy gave Neill, who passed away earlier this month, more precious time. Now a new international partnership at Melbourne’s Monash University aims to make the revolutionary treatment faster, cheaper and more accessible.
“Using some of the best technology, the best minds in Australia,” Monash University Vice Chancellor Sharon Pickering said.
Sam Neill died from pneumonia.(Dan Himbrechts/AAP PHOTOS) Credit: AAP
Current CAR-T therapy involves removing a patient’s immune cells, engineering them in a lab, then returning them to the body to attack cancer.
Right now, it takes weeks and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient.
Researchers want to use tiny fat particles to reprogram immune or T-cells inside the body with one injection.
“It’s basically teaching your body to fight the cancer cells and kill them. It will be available to everyone,” Professor Angus Johnston from Biological Therapeutics said.
Cancer treatment CAR-T that gave Hollywood star Sam Neill hope could soon help millions Credit: 7NEWS
Doctors hope it could treat all cancers, even autoimmune diseases.
“The real game changers are likely to be in solid tumours, which are really not treated efficiently,” Professor Colin Pouton from Pharmaceutical Biology said.
The treatment is still at least two years away from human trials, but researchers say if it proves successful, it could dramatically expand access to one of cancer medicine’s biggest breakthroughs.
“We have the best-in-class treatment, so we’re very optimistic,” researchers said.
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