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Neta Milman, a scientist at the Rambam Clinical Research Institute in Haifa, is studying pancreatic tumors with a view to developing cancer immunotherapy treatments. (ICRF)
This article is sponsored by the Israel Cancer Research Fund
JERUSALEM – There is a war raging in Israel with life-and-death consequences around the world.
Tunnels, and the enemy is not Iran, Hamas or Hezbollah.
The war is rather conducted in scientific laboratories and the battlefield is the human body. The enemy: cancer
Israeli scientists are experimenting with a new weapon in this war: immunotherapy, which manipulates its immune system to identify, fight and destroy cancer cells.
While immunotherapy has been around for decades, new advances in this area, coupled with recent drug approvals from the US Food & Drug Administration, has heightened interest in immunotherapy and its therapeutics. applications for the treatment of cancer, particularly advanced stage cancers that resist conventional treatments. Immunotherapeutic drugs already help patients with melanoma, lung cancer, stomach, liver and bladder, as well as some blood cancers
"Recent developments in immunotherapy have ushered in a medical revolution , representing a true paradigm shift, said Dr. Mark Israel, National Executive Director of the Israel Cancer Research Fund, which funds cancer research in the Jewish state.
"L & # 39; Cancer immunotherapy is exciting because, unlike other forms of therapy, system detects cancer cells and destroy them, "Israel said. "This area will have a major impact on future cancer outcomes."
This potential is in part what attracted Dr. Nathan Karin, an Israeli immunologist at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, to immunotherapy research. He is investigating whether the cellular mechanisms responsible for autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis can be used to create immunotherapeutic drugs for cancer.
Karin and her team are studying the interaction between two types of cells essential to the immune system: T cells and effector T cells. Regulatory T cells help tame immune system responses and prevent autoimmune diseases. But by suppressing effector T cells, they hinder the immune system's ability to fight cancer.
"We believe that if you amplify regulatory T cells, you can treat autoimmune diseases, and if you block their activity, you can thwart cancer.
Karin is one of dozens of Israeli researchers on cancer receiving financial support from the Israel Cancer Research Fund.For the organization, which raises funds in North America to support cancer research in Israel, one of the largest The challenges is to decide which promising research projects to fund.The ICRF has received 160 grant proposals in 2017 alone and can only fund a fraction.
This is where it is. A new partnership with the Cancer Research Institute, known as the IRC, is taking place from next year, identifying and funding the most promising immunotherapy research conducted in Israel.
A joint scientific group int including expert researchers and doctors from the United States and Canada involved in ICRF and IRC will meet each fall to evaluate the most promising Israeli immunotherapy research proposals, judging them based of innovation, feasibility and probability of impact. The field of action goes back to 1891, when William Coley, a doctor and cancer researcher, observed that some cancer patients infected with Streptococcus bacteria experienced dramatic dramaturgy. and spontaneous improvement. He started injecting the bacteria into his patients, with mixed results.
Treatment was almost abandoned despite Coley's peer skepticism and the advent of radiation therapy and improved surgical techniques.
According to Jill O'Neill-Tormey, CEO and Director of Scientific Affairs at IRC, the field is considered one of the most promising new approaches to cancer treatment
"There is still a lot of research to be done to realize the full potential of immunotherapy," said O Donnell-Tormey. "By partnering with the Israel Cancer Research Fund, which is well known among Israel's leading academic research centers, we will be able to support a more vital science in a country that is home to some of the world's most talented researchers." . "
Neta Milman, a scientist at the Laboratory for Applied Cancer Research at the Rambam Clinical Research Institute in Haifa, is one of the recent recipients of ICRF. She is studying tumors called pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, or PDAC. These tumors mainly contain non-cancerous cells that include a group of immune cells that promote tumor growth by producing small particles that carry genetic information to cancer cells. The small particles are called exosomes.
"We are trying to understand what exosomes send to cancer cells," said Milman. Exosomes may one day be a cancer treatment system because they can be designed to target cancer cells, she said.
Michal Lotem, who directs the Center for Melanoma and Immunotherapy Against Cancer at the Sharett Institute of Oncology at the Hadbadah Medical Center of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, receives a funding to support a new checkpoint receptor called SLAMF6, a protein found in immune cells. When they are activated, these receptors modulate the immune response so that there is no too strong response against normal tissues. But when it comes to cancer, the goal is to inhibit these receptor proteins so that the immune response against cancer is as strong as possible.
"If you effectively target this protein, it can double or triple the effect of immune cells." Gideon Gross and his team at the MIGAL-Galileo Research Institute, in Kiryat Shemona City, North of Israel, develop immune gene therapies, a treatment that involves altering the T cells of a patient in a laboratory Gross, a pioneer in the field, with Z. Eshhar at the Institute Weizmann's Science created in the 1980s the first receptors for chimeric antigen, or CAR – cancer-fighting molecules built in the lab and inserted into T cells. For his ICRF project, Gross hopes to improve performance T CAR Cells
For Karin of the Technion, who is well known for her cutting-edge research on autoimmune diseases like MS, the Fund's support "
" ICRF support has been the motivation for me to enter in research on cancer immunotherapy, "said Karin. "Now, most of our attention in the lab is on melanoma.Without them we would not do what we do."
(This article was sponsored by and produced in partnership with l & # 39; Israel Cancer Research Fund, whose ongoing support for this work and other Israeli scientists a long way towards ensuring that their efforts will have a significant and lasting impact in the global fight against cancer.This article was produced by JTA's native content team.)
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