Living Cancer Medicine Made More Precise and Safer With CRISPR and Electric Shock

T-cell treatments, among the most revolutionary cancer therapies, are the first living medicines used in blood cancers. To T cells taken from the patient, new genes are added to improve cancer-cell recognition, then the cells are returned as treatment. In July 2018, Naturepublished a study showing that CRISPR gene editing with electrical current, without viruses, could prepare T-cell treatments more safely and precisely.

Current genetic modification uses T-cell delivery through harmless viruses, but this is expensive and slow. The new method successfully modifies cells with electric shock and CRISPR.

Researchers tested two clinical scenarios. First, they corrected a point mutation preventing normal T-cell function. Cells from 3 children in a family with a rare autoimmune disease had the faulty site corrected with CRISPR. Within 2 weeks healthy T cells were successfully expanded, repairing defective cells through one gene repair.

Researchers plan to obtain FDA approval soon to treat this family.

Stem cell transplantation treats some autoimmune diseases but requires lifelong immunosuppressive (immune system-suppressing) drugs. The new method could therefore greatly ease patients' lives.

In the second scenario, genetic intervention aimed T cells at the skin cancer malignant melanoma cells. Electric shock (electroporation) delivered genetic material, enabling recognition and attack on melanoma cells.

Both scenarios were tested in the laboratory only; T cells were not returned to patients.

What Does This Study Mean for Us?

• Without viruses,CRISPR and electric shock successfully prepared T cells to attack cancer, enabling safer and more precise genetic modification.
• FDA-approved gene treatments, CAR-T therapies, are very expensive. Currently approved only for some lymphoma and leukemia types, they cost around half a million dollars per patient. This method could produce cheaper treatments.
• These were laboratory studies. Safety and effectiveness must be demonstrated in clinical trials.