For a time, the news that1.20 thousand needles of "magic medicine" cured tumors exploded all over the network, and CAR-T became a hot topic in the streets and lanes, and CAR-T cell therapy became the last straw that countless cancer patients hoped to seize.
The birth of CAR-T cell therapy has experienced a tortuous process for decades.
The first pioneer of CAR-T cell therapy is Professor Steven A. Rosenberg, a world-renowned expert in cancer and immunology. At the age of 82, he is still the surgical director of the American Cancer Institute.
Rosenberg's exploration of tumor immunity began with a rare case. At 1968, he is just a resident and is being trained in VA Hospital. One day, he received a 63-year-old veteran who needed a cholecystectomy. Rosenberg couldn't sit still while checking the patient's medical records.
12 years ago, this veteran had about 60% of his stomach removed in VA Hospital because of advanced gastric cancer, including a fist-sized tumor. Surgical records show that at least three tumors have spread to the liver and lymph nodes and cannot be removed. Without further treatment after operation, the patient quickly returned to the hospital for follow-up and the operation returned to normal. After 5 months, the patient gained weight and resumed work. 12 years later, when Rosenberg underwent cholecystectomy, he found that the tumor in the veteran's liver had completely subsided, and the cancer left no trace on the veteran.
Was this patient with terminal cancer misdiagnosed and had an unnecessary operation from the beginning?
With questions, Rosenberg found out the original pathological report and tissue section of that year and made a careful reading and comparison. It was found that the veteran was indeed in the late stage of gastric cancer and there was no misdiagnosis.
To rule out the possibility of misdiagnosis, the only explanation is that the veteran suffered the rarest miracle in medical history-the cancer subsided by itself and there was no need for treatment at all. Cancer heals itself? Is it possible? It is possible, but the probability is extremely low. Until Rosenberg met this patient, there were only 170 cases recorded in the world medical literature, of which only 3 cases involved gastric cancer, and 2 cases were finally confirmed to be self-healing. What is the reason? It's not clear yet. Rosenberg later published this case in Cancer magazine.
An idea flashed through Rosenberg's mind: the regression of tumor should be that the patient's immune system recognizes cancer cells as foreign invaders and kills them. Perhaps there is some unknown anti-tumor factor in the patient's blood. If the blood of veterans is transfused to other cancer patients, it may also help them fight tumors.
Just do it. Rosenberg found a patient with advanced gastric cancer. He was willing to try, and his blood type matched that of the veteran. Rosenberg was allowed to give the patient veterans' blood. The result was disappointing. The veteran's blood did not alleviate the patient's cancer. In the following months, the patient died because of the progress of cancer.
Although the experiment failed, the seeds of treatment with patients' own immune lymphocytes have been planted. He later wrote: "something started to burn in my heart, something that will never die." As early as in college, he knew that he needed to develop new treatments to help more patients. He realized that innovative research needs a deeper basic scientific background. During his Ph.D. in biophysics at Harvard University, he spent two years studying physics, advanced mathematics, physical chemistry and genetics, and another two years studying the protein structure of human cell membrane in the laboratory. He hopes that he can solve problems with scientific knowledge in different fields, instead of being intimidated by what he doesn't know.