SEOUL (AFP) – A team of South Korean scientists say they have found a way to produce the human body’s own cancer-killing cells through gene therapy, offering new hope to cancer sufferers.
The team said they had found that a gene called Vitamin D3 Upregulated Protein 1 (VDUP1) plays a crucial role in directing stem cells to diversify into immune cells known as natural killer cells.
Natural killer (NK) cells are large, granular blood cells known as lymphocytes that are able to eliminate virus-infected cells as well as tumor cells.
“Stem cells can develop into various cells and organs in the body,” said the leader of the team, Inpyo Choi of the state-financed Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology in the central city of Daejeon.
“We have found that when hematopoietic stem cells diversify into NK cells, the gene, Vitamin D3 Upregulated Protein 1 (VDUP1), plays a decisive role,” he told AFP.
“We have also succeeded in developing technology needed to induce stem cells obtained from a patient’s bone marrow to diversify into immune cells and activate them,” he said.
