Local News

Scientists at Brigham and Women's Hospital are using cancer to fight cancer

By Mallika Marshall, MD

January 4, 2023 / 5:35 PM EST / CBS Boston

BOSTON -- Local scientists have found a way to fight brain cancer with cancer.

Scientists at Brigham and Women's Hospital are using living brain tumor cells to stimulate a patient's own immune system to both destroy tumors and prevent cancer.

They say living tumor cells will travel long distances across the brain to return to the site of their fellow tumor cells, similar to homing pigeons returning to roost. To take advantage of that behavior, they engineered living tumor cells to release a tumor cell-killing agent as well as factors that allow the body's immune system to spot, tag, and remember tumor cells in the future.

They found the approach was both safe and effective in mice models.

Now they hope to develop a cancer-killing vaccine for use in humans with brain and other solid organ tumors.

Mallika Marshall, MD

Mallika Marshall, MD is an Emmy-award-winning journalist and physician who has served as the HealthWatch Reporter for CBS Boston/WBZ-TV for over 20 years. A practicing physician Board Certified in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Dr. Marshall serves on staff at Harvard Medical School and practices at Massachusetts General Hospital at the MGH Chelsea Urgent Care and the MGH Revere Health Center, where she is currently working on the frontlines caring for patients with COVID-19. She is also a host and contributing editor for Harvard Health Publications (HHP), the publishing division of Harvard Medical School.

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