NO one needs reminding of the devastating impact cancer has on our society. It is why the amount of funding that goes into cancer research each year exceeds the sums earmarked for finding cures for every other disease.
Given the scale of the challenge it presents to the health sector, it is always heartening, then, to hear of research which appears to promise truly life-changing treatment.
TC BioPharm is at
the cutting edge of immunotherapy. It has pioneered a technique which, in the most simple of terms, uses patients’ very own cells to combat cancer. It does this by cultivating those cancer-fighting cells – gamma
delta-T cells, to be precise – in mass numbers, before injecting them intravenously into the patient.
Of course, the science is
a lot more complex than has been explained in such rudimentary terms. But the progress made by TCB in recent years would suggest the technology it has developed could have genuinely transformative effects.
The potential of TCB’s pioneering work was recognised in January, when the Tokyo-listed Nipro Corporation and Scottish Investment Bank funded its continuing research to the tune of £6.25 million. It took to £9m the amount of investment TCB has raised to fund its work.
Now its founder Dr Michael Leek is set to work alongside leading academics at the prestigious University
College London. Broadly speaking, this project will adapt TCB’s technology for possible use in treating blood cancers in children and adults, including acute myeloid leukaemia. It is hoped the therapy could be introduced to patients at some stage next year.
Such developments are obviously encouraging from
a public health perspective. But the fact such cutting-edge techniques are being developed here is also
a feather in the cap for Scotland’s increasingly important biotech sector.
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