Base editing: Revolutionary therapy clears girl's incurable cancer

[rurallib]

Source: BBC.com

A teenage girl's incurable cancer has been cleared from her body in the first use of a revolutionary new type of medicine.

All other treatments for Alyssa's leukaemia had failed.

So doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital used "base editing" to perform a feat of biological engineering to build her a new living drug.

Six months later the cancer is undetectable, but Alyssa is still being monitored in case it comes back.



Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-63859184

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Heard this early this morning on our local NPR's overnight BBC feed.

To me this is simply astounding.

[ProfessorGAC]

1. Nice Find!

I agree with you on how impressive this is.

[EYESORE 9001]

2. Fantastic news

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Quick! Tell the magats that Dr Fauci is very interested in Base Editing

Let them make another self-inflicted wound. In fact, it is very expensive and will be for a long while. But eventually even magats will be able to say "No! I'm a pure-blood! I don't want your new-fangled cancer cure!"

[paleotn]

10. And remind them that they think government spending accomplishes nothing.

It was a massive, international effort, publicly funded, that made this even possible. If we had to wait for "the market" to fund these types of research, we'd still be bleeding patients and talking about "humors."

[Bayard]

4. Science is a wonderful thing!

[PatrickforB]

5. That's great. I doubt my HMO will provide access to this type of treatment, though.

Here in 'Murika, they wheel us through the accounting department where some guy with a laptop asks how we will 'handle' the financially crippling copay before they even consider rendering treatment.

Because patients aren't really important you know. Not nearly as important as shareholder PROFITS.

[area51]

17. +1 n/t

[hamsterjill]

29. Absolutely spot on.

I lost a family member five years ago because of this. We need universal health care… emphasis on the “care” aspect. Today’s plans are all about the money. They don’t give a damn is someone lives or dies.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

37. One of my husband's anti-cancer meds is as high as

$5,000 per month. We can't pay that. Fortunately there was a program through the manufacturer that we qualified for under certain conditions involving him spending a certain amount of money on other prescriptions over the year. We agreed, even though we were pretty sure we couldn't meet those conditions.

We worry maybe they'll try to make us pay retroactively after the year ends.

A few weeks ago, we got a letter saying the program was discontinued. Now we have to face finding a way to afford it again.

Extremely stressful!

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

6. This has to be fake news. There's no way such a medical advance could come from ...

... socialized medicine.

Where are the shareholder profits, the executive bonuses, the naming of stadiums, or, did I mention, shareholder profits?

Great news.

[Joinfortmill]

16. No kidding

[paleotn]

7. Incredible. Just incredible.

Hang in their, Alyssa. We're all rooting for you!

The technology is absolutely astounding. I remember when just sequencing the human genome was a monumental task, requiring over a decade of work and billions in international funding. Now were seeing the technology touch individual lives with treatments that were science fiction not that long ago.

[SouthernDem4ever]

8. truly amazing

I hope for the long term success of this therapy.

[Lonestarblue]

9. The NYT had a fascinating article a couple of days ago about editing genes to cure disease.

Here’s the link. No paywall.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/09/opinion/crispr-gene-editing-cures.html?unlocked_article_code=i_rrffXful4rm1f--O4WYyNMLrVnrjaxQdHauFnbCQ27vfLtW8XG_xa3004BzVpbfXH358ItDK8LTjdcBfbzwEiCZEScq4VhFFmRYJW0gRoN_FHNbm_sPVw6y8xuFxilFdO_x5uWKKj3HnADvUCqMrjA-p9OHLX2T-3R6R1y2_7qOKWj8sH_qjpp6u7YexNxpUQhPjRLtP52YYjVqig7Ev9aWIm4mjqLUnNdd45P4wcG5sAG6fe0ov00z99ePonIQbATx2c_Lkdd24F6sT7gopEXW6cEqZwdv8OQAHWRI7b4n9V6nUpbUIsnk5WxW-MFpTbESgSyHTxpyjbxf3vRnIm1NQ&smid=share-url

[texasfiddler]

11. Thanks for posting this.

I lost a good friend to cancer last night and I am still in somewhat of a fog right now. I needed to read this.

[dickthegrouch]

12. Sorry for your loss, fiddler/nt

[texasfiddler]

31. Thank you.

[rurallib]

21. Sorry for your loss

But it is good to know that hope is out there

[texasfiddler]

32. Thank you.

[momta]

13. Thanks for posting this.

It helps my heart to read stories like this after being inundated with shit about Putin, climate change, Magats, etc.

[NNadir]

14. It's great technology, but has been in approved use for quite some time. (It's very expensive.)

The news story is a little late; it's not really a new capability.

[rurallib]

20. Pretty sure the story of this girl and the success of the application

is new and as I said amazing.

[NNadir]

25. It's personalized medicine. It's unique to every patient.

[Joinfortmill]

15. Wow. Amazing.

[dchill]

18. A miracle of this magnitude can only be...

...the result of science. Go figure!

[republianmushroom]

19. Good news

[mn9driver]

22. My niece had this treatment about 8 months ago in Portland.

She is also cancer free at this time. This is amazing miracle stuff.

She’s currently having some side effects that they don’t understand but are causing pain. Hopefully they will be able to figure that out and treat it.

We just keep holding our breaths that the cancer doesn’t come back.

[rurallib]

23. Thanks for the report - this is indeed exciting

best wishes for your niece's recovery.

You may want to update DU on how she is doing occassionally.

[relayerbob]

24. Excellent! Science wins again!

[iluvtennis]

26. Love this story 😘 😘 Alyssa donated her hair when she found out she would lose it via chemo.

[samplegirl]

27. Wow! This is a great

Breakthrough!

[cactusfractal]

28. So it wasn't prayer?

Huh.

[Cha]

30. That is So Amazingly Brilliant! TY! nt

[WinstonSmith4740]

33. This is fantastic.

What incredibly wonderful news.
Although if I were a Republican, I would be outraged that cancer research had continued after it took my husband 12 years ago. I mean, my husband died...why should anyone else be saved? That seems to be how their brains work after seeing their meltdowns over student debt relief. At least it appears that way.

[LakeArenal]

34. Cure for cancer, Biden said. MAGATS laughed.

[progressoid]

35. Hooray for genetic engineering!

[Nictuku]

36. Thank you for sharing