On the occasion of Hospital 57357’s celebration of 10 years of operation, the first ever immunotherapy symposium in Egypt and the surrounding region was held in (November 2017), at the Hospital premises. North American experts and eminent physicians animated the scientific meeting with the latest on the subject. The symposium goals were to educate about immunotherapy, bringing cutting-edge research to 57357 and show its evolving role in such research discipline.
Since then the hospital was “working on both ends; the US and 57357 to make breakthroughs in science and to bring about the imminent application of immunotherapy in 57357 and the potential manufacturing of CAR T cells, explaining that 57357 “plans to bring immunotherapy with genetically engineered CAR T cells to the diseases that we know they can cure; acute lymphoblastic leukemia and lymphoma. Subsequently, we will target diseases in which it is less established.
At Hospital 57357, the nascent immunology research unit is thrilled to receive the Anaerobic chamber model : Bacteron 300, a much needed piece of equipment for microbiome research, a field that attracts scientists’ interest and mobilizes their efforts .”Thanks to the vision and support of ECN Canada donors, we acquire this piece of equipment that will place Egypt and 57357 on the map of global microbiome research”
Immunotherapy is a major breakthrough in cancer treatment, and that it works on improving the capacity of defected cancer- fighting cells in the human body.
The three projects this unit is presently involved in:
We now know that it is not only genes that define each one of us but also our microbiome which constitute the millions of bacteria that live in the enclosed areas of our body such as the mouth and the gut. Microbiome composition is unique to each person. Thanks to DNA sequencing technologies, scientists started to investigate the role of the microbiome and their effect on health and disease. We already know that some microorganisms can hinder the action of cancer drugs , whereas others are essential to make these drugs work. In other words, making a patient have the right microbiome might greatly affect their chances of surviving cancer.
The second research project deals with gene editing technology. In immunotherapy, we are either dealing with weak immune cells or a sneaky cancer that neutralizes the action of the informant cells or MDCS’s, those cells that inform the system about the necessity to take action against the cancerous cells. In collaboration with Zewail University and the Army’s medical College, we are working on providing a drug that will reverse the action of the bad informant within the tumor. As for the third research, we are investigating the mechanism by which cancer is able to maintain its blood supply.
Hospital 57357’s moral and mission-led commitment to be an institution leading research practice in the region.
Definition:
Cellular therapies or immunotherapy are the latest breakthrough in cancer therapy over the last several years. Cellular therapies are designed to harness the immune system’s ability to fight cancer. This kind of therapy involves collecting a specific group of immune cells from the blood, modifying them to produce a more forceful attack on a patient’s cancer cells, and then re- injecting or re -transferring them into the patient. There are several types of cell therapies including the CAR T-cell therapy, one form of which has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug administration to be used in treating children afflicted with resistant acute lymphoblastic leukemia and a second, for adults with advanced lymphomas.
Latest advances in the field:
The immune system is made up of white blood cells and organs and tissues of the lymph system. Immunotherapy is a type of biological therapy. As per the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) ‘s report, for the past 3 years, the Advance of the Year in cancer treatment was immunotherapy. Some successes that have been reported with CAR T-cell therapy are: 1) objective response rate of 82.5 in the non-responding children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), 2) In Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, at 6 months after receiving the CAR T-cell therapy, the lymphoma had still not come back in nearly 80% of the patients, 3) 94% of patient with multiple myeloma go into remission within 2 months of receiving B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) CAR T cells. This new cancer treatment approach is powerful and does come with serious risks that need to be considered before starting therapy. In particular, possible side effects include cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and neurologic problems.
It was revealed in that same report that immune checkpoint inhibitors could save 250,000 years of life for U.S. patients.
PD-1 is a checkpoint protein on immune cells called T cells. It normally acts as a type of “off switch” that helps keep the T cells from attacking other cells in the body. It does this when it attaches to PD-L1, a protein on some normal (and cancer) cells. When PD-1 binds to PD-L1, it basically tells the T cell to leave the other cell alone. Some cancer cells have large amounts of PD-L1, which helps them evade immune attack.
Monoclonal antibodies that target either PD-1 or PD-L1 can block this binding and boost the immune response against cancer cells. These drugs have shown a great deal of promise in treating certain cancers.
PD-1 inhibitors: These drugs have been shown to be helpful in treating several types of cancer, including melanoma of the skin, non-small cell lung cancer, kidney cancer, bladder cancer, head and neck cancers, and Hodgkin lymphoma. They are also being studied for use against many other types of cancer.
PD-L1 inhibitors: These drugs have also been shown to be helpful in treating different types of cancer, including bladder cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, and Merkel cell skin cancer (Merkel cell carcinoma). They are also being studied for use against other types of cancer.
Because of the remarkable responses cellular therapies have produced with certain types of Leukemia in some patients—both children and adults for whom all other treatments had stopped working, researchers have embarked on exploring whether they could ever be effective in solid tumors.