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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		Researchers look to improve immunotherapy for cancer
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:03
	Publish Date:		2016-12-19 18:00:00
	Description:		Immunotherapy can be effective in fighting cancer, but the immune system's killer T-cells sometimes make mistakes and attack normal cells instead. Wendell Lim, a molecular scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, believes he can change this by engineering T-cells. "One of the things that has been a challenge is how we increase the precision of the cell that they are better at recognizing cancer cells and discriminating them from normal cells. We have successfully programmed the T-cells like robots that can search the body and then deliver various payloads there. So it is like a smart weapon for combatting cancer. " In fact, Lim says, in just a couple of years the Food and Drug Administration might approve the engineered cells as a therapy to battle cancer. So, the scientists have geared up and are actively testing the technology now in labs. "I think we can transform what cancer therapy is like. Some of these immune therapies really might give much longer extensions of life."
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