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

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.