A lab technician works on a research process to find new CAR-T cells, or chimeric antigen receptor T cells, and RNA in the laboratory of French biopharmaceutical company Cellectis in Paris on September 23, 2021. Thomas Coex/ AFPRecent scientific and medical advances have added several new weapons to our arsenal, including personalized gene therapy, artificial intelligence screening, simple blood tests—and potentially soon vaccines.
With fewer severe side effects than chemotherapy, immunotherapy has had a profound effect on the treatment of several types of cancer. "With immunotherapy, we have moved up a level in cancer treatment, but steps still need to be taken for all the patients who do not benefit from it," he added.CAR-T therapy involves taking the T-cells from the blood of an individual patient and modifying them in a laboratory.
So far, CAR-T therapies have mainly been effective against some kinds of leukemia, and the process remains very expensive.Computer programs using artificial intelligence have been shown to identify brain and breast cancer from routine scans with more accuracy than humans. Liquid biopsies are able to detect cancer in DNA from a simple blood test, which is easier and less invasive than traditional biopsies which require a tissue sample.