CAR V This post criticizes and presents and alternative to the approach presented in CAR III. In Car III I proposed further genetic manipulation of a CAR T-cell, that is a killer T-cell to which a chimeric antigen receptor which targets cancer cells but not normal cells has been added. The proposed modifications consisted of deleting5 genes. One logistic problem is that the procedure for deleting a gene is different from the procedure for adding a gene. Since the CAR T-cell or further modified CAR T-cell is custom made for each patient, this could be a serious problem. In any case, this post discussing modifying a CAR T-cell to make it able to function in a tumor micro-environment by adding various genes, one for the CAR receptor, one to make the CAR prepared for reactive oxygen species (ROS think hydrogen peroxide) and 4 to make the cell ignore checkpoints – signals to not kill which have a normal function in healthy people but which can be used by cancer cells to avoid the r...
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December 30 2024
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I see that I have not kept up with this blog (sorry). Since I last posted the main tumor has been removed and 2 metasteses in my liver have been burnded out. Since then I have had more chemotherapy (fluoro uracil and anti epidermal growth factor receptor). One new thing is a very modern test for mutant DNA circulating in my blood. It seems that cancers pump out a lot of DNA so this is very sensitive. The latest result was negative -- no mutant DNA, no sign of cancer. It arrived on Christmas day (best Christmas present ever), Also the last session of chemotherapy is scheduled for January 7 2025. I am very pleased.
Wednesday which has some date (I think the 25th)
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I have finally enjoyed radiation therapy. It's been a long wait, but it is actually very cool. OK technically it warms me, if my calculations are correct (which is very unlikely) the radiation warms the tumor by about 1/2000 degree centigrade (very likely off by a factor of 1000 one way or the other). The x-ray source rotates in a circle pointing x rays in. The week of "centering" was done to do just what it says -- make sure the tumor is at the center of the circle so it always gets irradiated while the disk of surrounding healthy tissue just gets irradiated briefly as the beem circles centered on the center of the circle which is malignant (see how I illustrated uncontrolled multiplication with a nearly neoplastic repitition of "center"). SO it seems, I am in a good mood. For one thing, I have experienced no detectible side effects. I am also getting chemo -- 2 hours of infusion each Monday and a water balloon slowly pushing fUracil in me all week. The...
More on CAR T-Cells
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I am exploitin my concerned friends by advertizing my random thoughts while you look for health updates. I have two new posts on my ideas about cancer therapy (as opposed to my personal cancer therapy) here and here The posts are all brief and incomprehensible to non-experts. I am very eager to explain if anyone has enough patience to listen.
General state as of October 19th
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First as noted in "Tattoo" I should be starting chemoradiotherapy soon The basic diagnosis is not so good as I have rectal cancer with a metastesis in the liver and possible metastesis in the left lung. So far I have received 5 cycles of chemotherapy (oxalyplatin, fUracil, and anti EGFR) with surprisingly good results including dramatic reduction of the size of the liver metastesis and reduction of the size of the original tumor. FInally the complete lack of change of size of the suspect nodule in the lung increases hte hope that it is not cancer.