Basic research on Listeria bacteria leads to unique cancer therapy

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Three years ago, Portnoy cofounded a startup, Laguna Biotherapeutics, that worked with scientists in his University of California, Berkeley lab to eliminate the bacteria's ability to cause disease while retaining its ability to rev up production of a type of immune system cell associated with increased survival in cancer patients. These so-called gamma delta T cells are general-purpose killers of cancer cells or any cell infected by a pathogen—bacteria, virus, or fungus.

Laguna Bio will soon ask the FDA for clearance to evaluate the therapy in children with leukemia who have received unmatched bone marrow transplants. Stanford University Medical Center doctors hope that the engineered Listeria will boost gamma delta T cells in pediatric patients and help them stave off graft-versus-host disease, fight potentially deadly infections that take advantage of a transplant patient's compromised immune system, and prevent the cancer from returning.

Portnoy and his colleagues foresee a broader application of this Listeria therapy, which is unique among cancer therapies in stimulating the body's innate immune system to eliminate essentially any cell that puts out a distress signal indicating it's been compromised. Today's immunotherapies for cancer typically activate the "adaptive" immune system, boosting cells that recognize and kill cancer cells.

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#Listeria
#CancerTherapy
#Immunotherapy
#BacterialTherapy
#OncologyResearch
#TumorTargeting
#CancerInnovation
#Microbiology
#TranslationalMedicine

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