NARRATOR: Working out of the
University of Pennsylvania,
Dr. June has been
developing a new technology
to leverage the immune
system's T-cells to fight
and kill leukemia in mice.
[squeaking]
CARL JUNE: Yeah.
I have been through
a long journey.
So I was a physician.
And then gradually, I
came to the conclusion
that I could probably
help more people
through my scientific
laboratory efforts
than actually seeing people
one at a time in a clinic.
And I tell my family now that
my MD stands for mouse doctor.
NARRATOR: The immune
system protects
you from outside invasion.
If a virus, bacteria, or
fungus slips into your body,
the immune system responds
with a coordinated attack that
kills the invader,
and only the invader,
leaving your body intact.
[chittering]
This is a T-cell.
This immune cell's job
is to kill infected cells
before they cause more damage.
In theory, T-cells
can be extraordinarily
potent against leukemia.
But there's one problem.
Since cancer is effectively
part of your own body,
the immune system
sometimes ignores
these rogue cells, allowing
the cancer to spread unchecked.
June and his team
have worked tirelessly
to find a way to get
the immune system
to recognize and destroy all of
the cancer cells in the body.
CARL JUNE: The therapy
we're developing
is multidisciplinary.
It involves leukemia
specialists.
David Porter is known
around the world
for his treating various
kinds of leukemia.
It involves immunology
expertise, viral vector design
expertise, and then the cell
culture expertise that Bruce
Levine knows more about
than anyone in the world,
I'm quite sure.
OK.
I'm a professor in
cancer gene therapy.
And I direct the
Clinical Cell and Vaccine
Production Facility.
And what we do is to develop,
manufacture, and test
cell and gene therapies to
fight cancer using the patient's
own immune cells that have been
genetically targeted to cancer.
[humming]
A CAR T-cell is a T-cell
that is genetically
modified in a way
that allows it to see
and recognize a cancer cell.
A "CAR" stands for
chimeric antigen receptor.
It's a molecule
that is synthetic.
We can put it into
an immune cell
and genetically
change the immune cell
to express the CAR molecule.
That function of binding
activates the T-cell.
And it allows it
to become active,
to become a killer cell,
and to kill the leukemia.
[explosions]
[yelp]
[belch]
[explosion]
