After two decades of clinical trials, T-cell therapy has been refined, and is being used to treat more and more patients whose immune systems have been impaired by a genetic disease.
Johan Chamorro and his soster Joanna at their home in McLean, Virginia, on December 26, 2019; 18 months after bone-marrow therapy he shows no signs of his genetic illness. MCLEAN, VA. -- When a person's immune system is impaired by a genetic disease, a bone-marrow transplant can be a powerful therapeutic tool, but with a major downside: during the first few months the recipient's defenses against viruses are severely weakened. The slightest infection can lead to a hospital trip.
Her brother died of it at the age of seven. The inexorable laws of genetics meant that Maren had a one in four chance of transmitting it to her child. "Obviously, the fact that Maren had lost a sibling at a young age from the disease played a big role," Ricardo confided. From that sample they extracted "supercells," as Thomas calls them -- stem cells, which they reinjected into Johan's veins. Those cells would eventually settle in his bone marrow -- and begin producing normal white blood cells.
Keller grew them for 10 days in an incubator, creating an army of hundreds of millions of those specialized T-cells. The result: a fluffy white substance contained in a small glass vial.
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