May 4, 2024

Death by Stem Cell: Developing New Cancer Therapies

Khalid Shah, the director of the Center for Stem Cell and Translational Immunotherapy at Brigham and Womens Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School, establishes cancer therapies that utilize stem cells as delivery vectors to deal with metastatic and primary brain and lung cancers. How did you become interested in utilizing stem cells as a shipment method for cancer therapies?In graduate school, I studied cell signaling and hereditary engineering, so I could control genes to control cells. While I was examining proteins that could eliminate growth cells however not damage healthy cells, a new study came out revealing that stem cells migrate or home to growths in the brain. I believed if we might genetically engineer stem cells to launch therapies, they would eliminate the cancer cells once they homed to the tumor.What are the advantages of utilizing stem cell-based treatment transportation compared to direct intravenous therapy administration?Many therapeutic proteins or antibodies have brief half-lives, making it necessary to administer them repeatedly. What do you imagine the future will look like for stem cell-based therapies?I think cell treatment has come leaps and bounds in the last decade with cancer treatments based on chimeric antigen receptor T cells, natural killer cells, and stem cells.

How did you end up being interested in utilizing stem cells as a shipment approach for cancer therapies?In graduate school, I studied cell signaling and hereditary engineering, so I might manipulate genes to control cells. While I was examining proteins that might eliminate growth cells but not damage healthy cells, a new study came out revealing that stem cells migrate or home to tumors in the brain. What do you envision the future will look like for stem cell-based therapies?I think cell therapy has actually come leaps and bounds in the last decade with cancer treatments based on chimeric antigen receptor T cells, natural killer cells, and stem cells.