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# Scientists Use Patient's Immune System to Kick Cancer

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by 

[Alexis Hauk](https://time.com/author/alexis-hauk/)


## Alexis Hauk


May 9, 2014 1:07 AM UTC

by 

[Alexis Hauk](https://time.com/author/alexis-hauk/)


## Alexis Hauk


May 9, 2014 1:07 AM UTC

Scientists are making strides in a new cancer treatment that manipulates patients’ immune systems into going to war with malignant growths. The therapy, which could apply to a wide range of cancers, offers a silver lining for patients who have been diagnosed with melanomas in the the lungs, bladder and gastrointestinal tract.

In a study recently published in [Science](http://www.nih.gov/news/health/may2014/nci-08.htm) by the National Cancer Institute, under the National Institutes of Health, doctors “sequenced the genome” of a 43-year-old woman named Melinda Bachini, who had been struggling with a type of cancer that had not responded to chemotherapy, the [New York _Times_](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/09/health/doctors-use-patients-immune-cells-to-shrink-cancer-tumors.html?hpw&rref=health) reported.

Through what is called “adopted cell therapy,” Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg and colleagues involved in authoring the study “identified cells from her immune system that attacked a specific mutation in the malignant cells. Then they grew those immune cells in the laboratory and infused billions of them back into her bloodstream,” said the Times.

Rosenberg told the _Times_ that through the process, the tumors began “melting away.” He added, “It’s the first time we have been able to actually target a specific mutation in the immune system,” Rosenberg told [NBC News](http://www.nbcnews.com/health/cancer/new-immune-therapy-approach-tackles-womans-rare-cancer-n100811).

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