Cancer. The very word invokes images of a long-term and often unsuccessful fight against a disease that has been claiming millions of lives across the globe.
For years scientists have been trying to develop drugs and vaccines to fight cancer. These have not been largely successful as cancer cells mutate aggressively and have been known to display variant behavior in different sites within the same tumor.
Now, researchers at Cancer Research UK claim to have come upon a treatment method that will be tailor-made to suit each individual. Through this bespoke treatment module, doctors will treat the core "trunk" mutations, known as cancer heterogeneity.
"This is exciting. Now we can prioritise and target tumour antigens that are present in every cell - the Achilles heel of these highly complex cancers. This is really fascinating and takes personalised medicine to its absolute limit, where each patient would have a unique, bespoke treatment," said Professor Charles Swanton from the UCL Cancer Institute.
"It gets us closer to knowing why some patients respond to immunotherapy treatment and others don't, and how we might select which patients will benefit the most," said Cancer Research UK's chief clinician Peter Johnson.
A study on this personalized method of treatment, which has not been tried out on patients yet, was published in the Science journal.
But researchers are very confident that the treatment will work and can be used to help patients within the next couple of years.
"I will be disappointed if we haven't treated a patient within two years. Do we think it's going to work? I hope this is going to result in improvements in survival outcomes. If this doesn't work I'll probably hang my hat up and do something else," said Swanton.
"Genetically diverse tumors are like a gang of hoodlums involved in different crimes - from robbery to smuggling. And the immune system struggles to keep on top of the cancer - just as it's difficult for police when there's so much going on. Our research shows that instead of aimlessly chasing crimes in different neighbourhoods, we can give the police the information they need to get to the kingpin at the root of all organised crime - or the weak spot in a patient's tumour - to wipe out the problem for good," said Sergio Quezada, co-author of the study.
Though there is time before the treatement options in the study are used on patients, it is another example of human ingenuity crossing the barriers of science.
