article_snippet: Scientists have worked out how to teach the body’s immune system to identify cancer cells, allowing patients to be primed to destroy cancer.
article_snippet: The research is being carried out on patients with leukaemia.
article_snippet: The treatments aim to help the immune system seek out and destroy cancer cells .
article_snippet: Search and destroy: T-cells can be taught to identify and then kill cancer cells .
article_snippet: Most people have immune cells which can’t recognise cancer cells, which is one of the major problems with tackling the disease,’ Dr Morris explained.
article_snippet: In the short term, doctors are looking to see if these super-immune cells will be powerful enough to stop leukaemia patients from relapsing after chemotherapy.
article_snippet: But scientists also hope this approach might work to help treat a range of other cancers too.
article_snippet: Dr Morris, whose research with Professor Hans Stauss has been funded by the charity Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research and government body Cell Therapy Catapult, said: ‘Dr Morris, whose research with Professor Hans Stauss has been funded by the charity Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research and government body Cell Therapy Catapult could potentially use Lymphoma Research and government body in ovarian cancer, breast cancer, and patients with prostate or colon cancer too.
article_snippet: ’ Ruth Lacey said this approach should produce less side effects than chemotherapy and provide longer-term protection than drugs, which are flushed out of the body in days or weeks, because immune cells have a ‘memory’, persisting at low levels in case a threat re-emerges.
article_snippet: The hope is that the genetically engineered T-cells will do this with cancer, said Dr Morris,
article_snippet: However, Dr Kat Arney of Cancer Research UK, struck a note of caution:
article_snippet: ‘These treatments are still in the early stages of clinical trials, and although some people have had great responses, some people haven’t worked for everyone.
highlights_snippet: Experts find way of teaching body's immune system to identify cancer cells .
  
highlights_snippet: The new medical advance allows patients to be primed to destroy cancers .
  