Alyssa (13) has been battling leukemia with T-cells since May last year. Chemotherapy, bone marrow transplant – her doctors tried everything to help the young Briton. Yet there was never any success, the classic treatment options could not do anything against the recurrent blood cancer, writes the BBC.
“I would have died eventually,” Alyssa said. Her mother, Kiona, said she looked up to Christmas around this time last year because she thought it was “the last time we’d have her with us.” What happened next would have been unthinkable a few years ago and made possible by incredible advances in genetics.
Basic editing can create new cells
Because the doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London have developed a new, living drug for Alyssa using the ‘base editing’ method, itself discovered only six years ago – a true feat of biotechnology. And with success: Six months after the start of the therapy, the cancer has disappeared.
The four types of bases – adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T) – are the building blocks of our genetic code. Just as the letters of the alphabet form words, the billions of bases in our DNA form our body’s instructions.
Base editing allows scientists and doctors to zoom in on a specific part of the genetic code and then change the molecular structure of a single base, transform it into another and alter the genetic instructions. The doctors from London have developed a new type of T-cell that hunts down and kills the evil one, according to the British broadcaster.
“It’s Just Amazing”
Alyssa’s family was skeptical at first. When the idea was explained to the family, all Mother Kiona thought was, “Is that possible? Can you really do that?” In May of this year, the young fighter was the first to opt for the experimental therapy, which despite all the uncertainties contained millions of modified cells, becoming the first patient to be treated in hospital with this therapy.
Now Alyssa is cancer free – and overjoyed. “You just learn to appreciate every little thing. I’m just so thankful to be here now,” the teenager told the BBC. “It’s crazy. It’s just unbelievable that I was given this opportunity. I am very grateful for it and it will help other children in the future.” (chs)