This article is about a new treatment doctors are experimenting with that uses your own white blood cells to kill cancer. The treatment involves a large number of T cells, which are a form of white blood cells, and injecting them with a form of HIV that carries cancer-fighting genes. When the T cells are put back into the body they begin destroying cancerous cells. So far the treatment has been used on three people with advanced leukemia that was unable to be treated with chemotherapy. The results so far have been very good. Two of the patients went into complete remission, while one entered partial remission. The doctors, however, are far from calling anyone cured, or in any way claiming they have defeated leukemia. Instead they have stated that although the initial results are positive, the treatment is still in its early experimental phase, and will require a lot more work. Other people in the field, however, have exclaimed that the group has made a significant break through. For years researchers have been trying to find a way to make a persons own body fight cancer, rather then having to use radiation to destroy the cells. This treatment is one of the biggest breakthroughs in that study, and could lead to many more discoveries. The treatment itself involves many steps. First the patient’s blood is run through a machine to extract as many T cells as possible. These T cells are then exposed to the gene carrying HIV virus, and frozen. At the same time the patient is given chemo to try to kill every remaining T cell in his or her body, so that nothing can interfere with the genetically modified ones once they reenter the blood stream. Finally the new T cells are put back into the body. Patients who have the treatment are not left completely healthy. The new T cells do weaken the immune system, so injections must be given every few months to stop infections. The treatment still has a long way to go. It can still be dangerous, and must be proven to be significantly more effective them chemo before it will be mass-produced, the groundwork, however, has been laid.
The information in this article affects humanity profoundly. Millions of people die every year from cancer, and even more are forced to live their life in pain from complications stemming from the disease. The way cancer is treated, which is in most cases chemotherapy, is also very bad for the body. This treatment proposes a way that your own body could learn how fight the cancer. This is a better situation then having to use an external force to kill the cancerous cells. This would mean that people who are having their cancer treated would not have to deal with many of the complications associated with chemo, such as general weakness. The immediate impact of this information on society, however, is not that great. The article makes it clear that although early signs are good this treatment will not be mainstream for a very long time, if ever. There are still many things researchers need to figure out before they can start treating more people.
I feel that this article was very interesting. It does a good job of explaining the treatment to the reader in an understandable way. This treatment obviously involves some very serious science, but the author is able to describe it in such a way that anybody can understand. I also think the article does a good job of managing expectations. It does not proclaim that cancer is now cured. It instead tells that reader that although there ahs been a great break through, there is still a lot fo work to be done
This review written by Lucas Berger was very well done and about a very interesting article. One thing that Lucas did well was explained what T- cells were and how they were used in this treatment to fight the cancer cells in the persons body. Another thing that I like that Lucas did was talk about how this could affect the world. HE said that millions of people die from cancer every year and even more suffer from either the disease or the treatment for the disease. He then says that the way that his article talks about how to fight cancer will be not only less painful and less debilitating, but also it will be better for your body. He also explains that this treatment is not a new idea, it has been around for years and how this is one of the first major breakthroughs in the idea to make your body able to fight off cancer cells. One thing that would have made the review better was to talk about if there are any improvements being made to this process. Also he could have talked about where this treatment idea came from and why, if it is successful, has the potential to change the world of modern medicine.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I personally found extremely interesting is learning how the scientists produce the T-Cells and how they work in attacking the cancer cells from inside the body rather than the usual treatment of radiation that kills the cancer cells from the outside.
You are missing the link to original article and you did not include a formal,properly formatted citation for the article.
ReplyDeleteI thought that Lucas wrote a good review of his article on a possible new treatment for cancer. Lucas did a good job of explaining what the treatment is. He described how doctors will use the body’s own T-cells, which have been given an HIV gene, to combat cancerous cells. Lucas also explained how the treatment is still in its infancy, having only been used on three patients so far this treatment has a very long way to go before it could be used on a large scale to fight cancer. However, Lucas did acknowledge that the treatment is still a huge breakthrough in the field of cancer study. One thing Lucas should have talked about would be what the next step was for the doctors researching this new treatment, and whether or not they are planning on pushing toward a larger scale study. Also, Lucas could have mentioned where this research was being conducted, and who was most responsible for developing this treatment. What I found as the most interesting in this review was the fact that the treatment requires an HIV gene to be given to the T-cells in order for them to target only the cancerous cells.
ReplyDeleteI thought that Lucas wrote a very good and understandable review of his article. He did a great job of explaining the process and telling us how doctors go about getting the T-cells, making them fit to fight cancer by injecting them with HIV, and getting them back into the patients. He also did a very good job of explaining the perks of this method of fighting leukemia. He explained that it is much healthier to use this method than to go through other more popular methods such as chemotherapy that are all very draining on the body. He explained that the reason this method is better than those is that it uses the body's own system to fight the disease as opposed to an outside source. One final very good thing that Lucas did in his review was explain the situation that this method of fighting leukemia is in. What I mean by this is that Lucas explained very thoroughly that this method is very new and has only been used on 3 patients, and because of this it is in its very early stages and many more tests and trials must be run before this method can even think of becoming more mainstream. One thing that Lucas could have mentioned in his review is whether the patients who received help from this method have been in better or worse shape than those who were healed from older methods such as chemotherapy. One other thing that Lucas could have mentioned was who was conducting these trials, and whether they were big medical companies conducting them or small individual doctors. The most interseting part of this article for me was the method itself. What I mean by this is that it was very interesting to me that people who were being injected with T-cells which contained an HIV-gene, something that sounds very dangerous to me, were actually becoming healthier. I found it very interesting and surprising that there were no serious downsides to this method.
ReplyDeleteI think Lucas did a good job on explaining this article in the simplest way. Therefore, I understand now that scientists remove T-cells from the body and then add the cancer-fighting gene. I also thought that Lucas did a good job on stressing the fact that this process isn't something to get excited about until more testing has been done. Finally, I think that Lucas did a good job explaining the old methods of treating cancer and stating how this new way might save thousands of lives. However, Lucas didn't say how scientists would further test this method or what the next step was into researching this method. I was surprised that this method could potentially work and I was surprised that scientists didn't figure out this method earlier because it sounds so simple.
ReplyDeleteI found Lucas's review to be phenomenally enlightening. He did a great job of summarizing the key points of the article, including the method by which the T-cells are used to fight cancer. As he elucidates, by giving the T-cells an HIV gene, doctors are able to target and destroy cancer cells. Additionally, Lucas did very well in his cry for some moderation in the voices of this new technique's fans, as he points out that there is still a great deal of work to be done before this is accepted as a viable treatment option, and many questions that still must be answered. Even with this acknowledgement, Lucas still managed to convey the scientific significance of this apparent breakthrough, as he makes it clear that, if this holds up, it would represent a new era in the fight against cancer. I do wish that Lucas had talked more about the future of this treatment, assuming that it was discussed in the article. If it wasn't, though, that is not his fault. Additionally, I would have appreciated more information regarding the doctors who are pushing this breakthrough technology through, and making this happen. To me, the most interesting feature of this review was just the sheer magnitude of this development and the what it could mean to humanity going forward.
ReplyDeleteI could not find a link to the actual article (which would have been helpful), but I enjoyed the new information presented by this review, because Lucas was able to describe very succinctly the process of the new treatment. However, he assumed that the reader knew what chemotherapy and cancer were. Most people understand in a general sense, by what it does to the human body, but his good description of the T cells should be done with a scientific explanation of the working of the others. I also applaud his making sure to note whether the article sensationalizes cancer. As scientists observing when colleagues are publishing material to exaggerated to elicit a shock or written to inform properly is very important. It definitely gives us hope for finding a more effective way of abating cancer that doesn’t solely reply on repeated toxic drug cocktails.
ReplyDeleteLucas wrote a great review that was very interesting and well presented. He explained very well how the doctors inject the T-cells with HIV which helps make them more fit to fight cancer. He went further to show how this treatment could effect to world as a whole which offered some very interesting insights. Finally, he gave us the results of this treatment on the three patients that have used it, which was very useful in further understanding the process and success rate. One thing that he could have included in his review would have been the origins of this treatment, and how it came to be. Furthermore, he could have made clear which kinds of doctors were using this treatment on their patients meaning is it generally large hospitals or individual doctors experimenting with this treatment. I found this article most interesting because it describes a situation that I would think of as quite dangerous, when in fact the patients are becoming more healthy from this treatment.
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