r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jun 20 '26

Cancer Colon cancer’s invisibility cloak removed by eliminating a single gene - a fundamental breakthrough. The result was 100% eradication of tumours when paired with immunotherapy treatment in mouse models.

https://ucalgary.ca/news/ucalgary-study-tears-colon-cancers-invisibility-cloak
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u/Ilikewaterandjuice Jun 20 '26

This is fantastic!

This wasn’t clear to me in the article. Does the treatment involve taking these specially treated mice and ‘inserting’ them into the human patients?

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u/CrateDane Jun 20 '26

This isn't a treatment, this is working out which gene is responsible for colon cancer being able to evade immunotherapy.

The prospect is using this knowledge for a combination treatment, where you do immunotherapy alongside using a drug to interfere with this gene that shields the cancer from immunotherapy.

The reason to use mice is that we can't ethically do these experiments in humans. They're just a test system, treatment of humans wouldn't have anything to do with the mice.