"A teenage girl's incurable cancer left her body", he says the BBC, "using a revolutionary new type of drug...".
Doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital used 'base editing' to perform a bioengineering miracle and make a new living drug. Six months later the cancer was undetectable, but Alyssa is still being monitored in case it comes back.
Η Alyssa, η οποία είναι 13 ετών από το Λέστερ, διαγνώστηκε με οξεία λεμφοβλαστική λευχαιμία των Τ-κυττάρων (T-cell) τον Μάιο του περασμένου έτους. Ο καρκίνος της ήταν πολύ επιθετικός. Η χημειοθεραπεία, και στη συνέχεια μια μεταμόσχευση μυελού των οστών, δεν μπόρεσαν να την απαλλάξουν από την ασθένεια.
But the Great Ormond Street team used a technology called base editing, which was invented just six years ago and allows scientists to zoom in on a precise part of the genetic code. They can then change the molecular structure of a single base, turning it into another and changing its genetic instructions. A large team of doctors and scientists used this tool to engineer a new type of T-cell that was capable of hunting down and killing Alyssa's cancerous T-cells.
After a month, Alyssa's cancer was in remission and she was given a second bone marrow transplant to regenerate her immune system. Alyssa is the first of 10 people to receive the drug as part of a clinical trial.
Her mother said that a year ago she was dreading Christmas, "thinking this will be our last with her". But it wasn't.
And the BBC reports that applying the technology to cancer “shows us only the bare minimum of what basic treatment can achieve... There are already trials of basic treatment in sickle cell disease, as well as high cholesterol that runs in families and for the blood disorder beta - thalassemia".
