ScienceToday

A new type of immune cell has been discovered by a Cardiff University team of researchers. They hope this cell could be used one day as a “one-size-fits-all” cancer treatment. This cell is expected to kill breast, lung, prostate and other types of cancers, as it did in lab tests.

Scientists at Cardiff University claim they have found a cell with a new type of receptor that will eliminate all cancer types. They published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Natural Immunology.

Even though their discovery hasn’t been tested on actual cancer patients and it’s still in the lab test phase, study author Andrew Sewell has called it “an exciting new frontier” with enormous potential.

“We hope this new (T-cell receptor) may provide us with a different route to target and destroy a wide range of cancers in all individuals,” he added in a statement.

The work is still at an early stage, but it shows great potential. Experts in the field who were not involved in the study were very optimistic about the results. Dr. Marcel van den Brink, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, called the discovery “a very nice step forward” but said more work is needed before discovering if it will work on patients.

“It’s very early in the process to figure out if this pathway, if these types of T-cells, really could be used as a way to control cancer,” van den Brink said.