Cancer Immunotherapy? There’s a Synthetic Gene Circuit for That

Approaching the immune system as though it were a work of engineering in need of improved cancer-fighting programming, MIT scientists have developed gene circuits that alter gene expression in cancer cells, causing the cancer cells to come to the notice of T cells, which respond by killing the cancer cells selectively, sparing healthy cells.The scientists say that their synthetic biology approach, which has been shown to work in an in vivo model of ovarian cancer, as well as in an animal model,