Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/DQdod3Mj3HW/A new, supercharged form of immunotherapy for breast cancer has just been announced by UCLA oncologists in the Journal of Hematology & Oncology. The new approach involves the production of CAR-NKT cells, standing for chimeric antigen receptor-natural killer T cells, that have the superpower to attack not one but dozens of tumor cell surface antigens simultaneously.  The cells target a protein mesothelin, which cancers need to rapidly grow and spread.Many current immunotherapies only target a single receptor. Triple negative breast cancers lack many of these common receptors making them difficult to treat successfully. This CAR-NKT therapy attacks so many receptors it could prove effective for those with these triple negative cancers.Even better, the CAR-NKT cells can be mass-produced from donated stem cells and stored for immediate use on demand. Very promising is the fact that the CAR-NKT cells target, mesothelin, is not only found on breast cancers but a