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By Michele Chabin, for Israel Cancer Research Fund
There is a war raging in Israel, with life and death consequences around the world. There are no reservoirs or tunnels. The enemy is not Iran or Hamas. This war is being waged in scientific laboratories on the battlefield of the human body. The enemy: cancer
Israeli scientists are experimenting with immunotherapy, which manipulates the immune system to destroy cancer cells.
While immunotherapy has been around for decades, new advances in the field and recent Food & Drug Administration approvals have intensified the interest, particularly for advanced stage cancers that are resistant to treatment conventional. Immunotherapies already help patients with melanoma, lung cancer, stomach, liver and bladder, as well as some blood cancers.
"Cancer immunotherapy is exciting because, unlike other forms of therapy, the system detects and destroys cancer cells," said Dr. Mark Israel, executive director of the Israel Cancer Research Fund. . "This area will have a major impact on future cancer outcomes."
This potential is what attracted Dr. Nathan Karin from the Technion 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 cancer immunotherapy drugs.
Karin and her team study the interaction between two types of cells essential to the immune system: T cells and effector T cells. Regulatory T cells tame immune system responses and prevent autoimmune diseases. But by suppressing effector T cells, they hinder the body's ability to fight cancer. "We believe that if you boost regulatory T cells, you can treat autoimmune diseases, and if you block their activity, you can thwart cancer." Karin is among dozens of researchers receiving financial support from the Israel Cancer Research Fund. For the organization, which raises funds in North America to support cancer research in Israel, it is difficult to decide which projects to fund. ICRF received 160 grant proposals in 2017 alone.
That's where the Intervening Institute of Cancer Research, known as the CRI, is based in the United States. Beginning next year, ICRF and CRI will partner to identify and fund the most promising immunotherapy research in Israel.
A scientific review group consisting of experts from the United States and Canada will meet each fall to evaluate research proposals based on innovation, feasibility and probability d & # 39; impact. The project dates back to 1891 when William Coley, a physician and cancer researcher, observed that some cancer patients infected with Streptococcus had experienced spontaneous improvement. . He started injecting the bacteria into his patients, with mixed results.
With skepticism and the advent of radiation therapy, the treatment was almost abandoned.
Today, however, new avenues of research are under way. Promising, said Jill O'Neill-Tormey, CEO and Director of Scientific Affairs at IRC
"There is still more research that needs to be done in order to realize the full potential of immunotherapy "said O & # 39; 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 more vital sciences in a country where some of the country's most talented researchers are located. world."
Neta Milman, scientist at the Laboratory for Applied Cancer Research of the Rambam Clinical Research Institute in Haifa, is one of the recent recipients of ICRF. She is studying pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, tumors that primarily contain non-cancerous cells, but which include a group of immune cells that promote tumor growth by producing small particles that carry genetic information to cancer cells. Small particles are called exosomes
"We try to understand what exosomes send," said Milman. One day they could be a treatment system because they can be designed to target cancer cells, she said.
Michal Lotem, who runs the Center for Melanoma and Cancer Immunotherapy at Hadbadah, has received funding to support work on a checkpoint receptor called SLAMF6, found in immune cells. When they are activated, these receptors modulate the immune system so that there is no too strong response against normal tissues. But when it comes to cancer, the goal is to inhibit these 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-Galilee Research Institute in Kiryat Shemona, north of Japan. Israel, are developing immune gene therapies, a treatment that involves altering the T cells of a patient in a laboratory Gross, a pioneer in the field, with Zelig Eshhar at the Weizmann Institute of Science created in the 1980s the first receptors for chimeric antigen, anti-cancer molecules built in the laboratory and inserted into T cells For its ICRF project, Gross hopes to improve their performance
For Karin, known for his cutting-edge research on autoimmune diseases, the fund's support has allowed its first foray into cancer research. "ICRF support has been the motivation for me to participate in immuno research." cancer therapy, "he said. "Now, most of our attention in the lab is on melanoma – without them we would not do what we do."
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