Landmark CRISPR trial shows promise against deadly diseaseLandmark CRISPR trial shows promise against deadly disease“It is probably the most complicated therapy ever attempted in the clinic,” says study co-author Antoni Ribas, a cancer researcher and physician at the University of California, Los Angeles.“We’re trying to make an army out of a patient’s own T cells.”The results were published in Nature1 and presented at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer meeting in Boston, Massachusetts on 10 November.“And although there are some shared mutations, they are the minority.”The researchers then used algorithms to predict which of the mutations were likely to be capable of provoking a response from T cells, a type of white blood cell that patrols the body looking for errant cells.“But in the patients we see in the clinic with cancer, at some point the immune system kind of lost the battle and the tumour grew.”After a series of analyses to confirm their findings, validate their predictions and design proteins called T-cell receptors that are capable of recognizing the tumour mutations, the researchers took blood samples from each participant and used CRISPR genome editing to insert the receptors into their T cells.Mandl says there are several potential ways to toughen up T cells, for example by removing the receptors that respond to immunosuppressive signals, or by tweaking their metabolism so that they can more easily find an energy source in the tumour environment."