Health security

Yale doctor creates new weapons to kill cancer

The battle against cancer is increasingly being fought on the genetic level, and Dr. Samuel Katz is aiding the body’s immune system by creating safer, more effective weapons.

His research is focused on treating cancers of the blood, such as multiple myeloma, Hodgkin’s lymphoma and acute myeloid leukemia, but his technique could eventually be used against solid tumors as well, including cancers of the breast, ovary, pancreas and colon.

Most gene therapy uses genetically modified DNA in the body’s T lymphocytes — a type of white blood cell that is an integral part of the body’s immune system — to find, attack and kill cancer cells.

“Because T cells have this ability to kill, people have modified the system,” said Katz, an assistant professor of pathology at the Yale School of Medicine. “They’ve put a gene into the T cell, which is called a CAR,” for chimeric antigen receptor.

The patient’s own T cells are modified with the new gene, then returned to the body, where they recognize a molecule on the cancer cell’s surface, called an antigen, and destroy the cell.