Killing off cancer cells, without damaging nearby healthy cells, is especially challenging in the treatment of brain tumours, since every cell in the brain plays a vital role in human functioning. However, a team of researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Stem Cell Institute is working on a way around this problem: they are training stem cells to battle brain tumour cells while bypassing healthy brain tissue. Although this research is currently being conducted in a laboratory, the technique may be ready to move to testing in clinical trials in the next five years.

The team, led by neuroscientist Khalid Shah (pictured), who directs the Molecular Neurotherapy and Imaging Lab at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, is working on developing stem cell-based therapeutics that simultaneously stop cancer cells from proliferating and ultimately kill them in an effort to eradicate tumours.

Dr Shah’s stem cells are made with a mutation that doesn’t allow cancer-killing toxins to act inside the cell itself. The toxin-resistant stem cells also have an extra bit of genetic code that allows them to make and secrete the toxins. Any cancer cells that these toxins encounter do not have this natural defence and therefore die.

Dr Shah and his team are currently pursuing FDA approval to bring this and other stem cell approaches developed by them to clinical trials.