A cancer cure? British scientists uncover mutation gene that is paving the way for 'revolutionary' new treatments

Despite advances in medicine, cancer claims more than millions of lives worldwide each year - and even so-called ‘wonder drugs’ only give patients an extra few weeks of life, on average.

 

Landmark work funded by Cancer Research UK has uncovered mutations that are found in every cancer cell raising hopes that the body's immune system could be trained to destroy them in what the charity say could prove 'a revolutionary way to treat or even cure' the disease.

 

The study, led by experts from University College London, gets to the heart of why existing treatments are often of limited benefit.

 

Although we think of a tumour as being a lump of identical cells, it grows and mutates over time.

 

Existing drugs typically zero in on one type of cell and, if the cancer changes too much, a medicine that seemed to help will stop working.
 

And even if the drug seems to wipe out the cancer, some highly-mutated cells may still be lurking and the disease returns.

 

However, some hardy mutations are found on every single cancer cell in a tumour and the UCL researchers have found a way of identifying them.

They have also shown that some lung cancer patients have disease-fighting white blood cells that are a perfect match for these common mutations.
 

In future, these white blood cells could be removed from the patient, grown up in the lab and then put back into their body to kill their cancer.
 

In theory, they should wipe out every cell.
 

Another option is use the information on the mutations to create a vaccine – a drug that tells the immune system to fight the cancer.

 
 Trials on the first patients are expected within two years and the co-author of the study, Professor Charles Swanton, said: 'Do we think it's going to work? I hope this is going to result in improvements in survival outcomes. If this doesn't work I'll probably hang my up hat and do something else.'


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