Patients suffering from four different kinds of cancer might soon benefit from advances in biotechnology in Taiwan.
According to Jacqueline Whang-Peng (彭汪嘉康), director of the National Health Research Institute's cancer division (國家衛生研究院), the research center has entered Phase I clinical trials for gene therapies useful on advanced colon cancer and advanced lung cancer.
Gene therapy is the transfer of genetic material into the cells of an organism in order to treat disease, a form of treatment started with failures in the 1970s that has begun to see success only in the past decade.
Although professionals within the biotech field were not surprised by news of the gene therapies entering Phase I clinical trials, the advance is significant for the nation's research success.
The national research organization has also been working on dendritic cell immunotherapy for advanced nasopharyngel carcinoma -- a type of nose cancer -- and on liver cancer, two of the most common cancers in Asia.
In this form of therapy, dendritic cells from the cancer patient are used as a vehicle to deliver treatments against cancer cells. While dendritic cells have been proven to be excellent vehicles, there has been little success working out exactly how to use them for treatment delivery. The nose cancer immunotherapy was administered to 12 patients and showed no side effects, while 4.5 patients showed partial remission of the cancer, according to Peng.
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