Better. Stronger. Faster. Scientists rebuild cancer-killing cells [PODCAST]

When Dr. Eduardo Davila talks about his work using a patient's immune system to fight cancer, he is reminded of a television show he watched as a child, “The Six Million Dollar Man.” The show's main character becomes a better, stronger version of himself after a devastating accident.

“What I remember from that show is that he jumped farther and ran faster,” said Davila, a professor in the division of medical oncology in the department of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

At the cellular level, Davila's team has developed a novel technique to enhance all forms of cellular immunology – a way to regenerate T cells and improve their ability to recognize and kill cancer cells. In this episode of the Health Science Radio podcast, Davila explains his team's advances in cancer immunotherapies, including tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy.

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“My research team and I have been working for the last decade to find ways to rejuvenate (the T cells), make them strong and young again, and make them better than before,” Davila said of his lab. “We've done this through genetic engineering, where we've developed a synthetic gene that we put into the immune cell, making it live longer, kill better, and find the cancer more easily.”

TIL therapy has become one of the most effective therapies for some cancers, including head and neck cancer and lung cancer, for which there are few other treatment options, Davila said. Now his team is seeing success in treating some sarcomas with the therapy.

His team's latest project – developing a MyD88 platform to improve cellular cancer immunology – is one of nine research projects by CU School of Medicine faculty members receiving significant funding through the Anschutz Acceleration Initiative. The AAI's goal is to support advances in health care that can have a direct impact on patients within the next three to five years.

“I think the future really depends on how the immune system works and what we can combine with immunotherapies for certain cancers in certain patients,” Davila said. “Combination immunotherapies — whether it's immunochemotherapy, immunoradiology, etc. — for different cancers is the way to go, in my opinion.”

A transcript of the podcast discussion can be found in the original article. was originally published on August 6, 2024 by the University of Colorado Cancer Center. Republished with permission.