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French-Canadian scientist Michel Sadelin won a Science Oscar in Los Angeles on Saturday for his work on genetically modifying cancer-fighting immune cells.
The genetic engineer made his breakthrough at a glitzy awards ceremony attended by tech giants like Elon Musk and Bill Gates, as well as celebrities like Jessica Chastain, Robert Downey Jr., and Bradley Cooper. Award-winning.
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His research led to the development of a new form of therapy called CAR-T, which has shown great efficacy against certain blood cancers.
“This award is an extraordinary recognition,” Sadlan told AFP on the red carpet at the Oscar Museum. “It’s all the more an honor because…my scientific colleagues have been telling me for a long time that it would never work.”
Established in 2010, the Breakthrough Prize recognizes “the world’s brightest minds” in fields such as life sciences, fundamental physics and mathematics, and aims to be the Silicon Valley-backed answer to the Nobel Prize.
Dubbed the “Oscars for Science,” its founding sponsors include Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg.
Sadlein will share the $3 million prize with co-winner Carl June, an American immunologist who independently led groundbreaking research in this field.
“But the greatest joy is meeting patients who no longer have the chance to thank us and are still alive today because of their CAR-T cells,” Sadlein said.
Sadorain studied medicine in Paris, then immunology in Canada, and in 1989 took up a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“A living drug”
At the time, there was a great deal of interest in developing vaccines that would train the immune system to recognize and destroy cancer cells, similar to teaching it how to fight off foreign invaders such as bacteria and viruses.
After moving to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, Sadline developed a method to genetically reprogram human T cells using neutralized viruses. This causes T cells to grow claw-like structures called antigen receptors, which allow T cells to target specific cells. cancer cell.
These chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells, as Sadran named them, are genetically engineered to not only recognize cancer, but also go into killing mode and proliferate, growing an army within the body to eliminate the enemy. Instructions were also given.
Thanks to the foundation laid by Sadlein and June, six U.S.-approved CAR-T cell therapies are now available, and hundreds more trials are underway.
A patient’s own T cells are collected, modified outside the body, and then injected into the bloodstream, creating a so-called “living drug.”
This treatment has been proven effective against lymphoma, certain leukemias, and myeloma, a serious and complex blood cancer. Sadlein hopes the research will allow “this treatment to be extended to other cancers.”
One of the main challenges is lowering the cost of treatment, which typically costs more than $500,000 to be covered by insurance.
On Saturday, about 20 other scientists received Breakthrough Prizes in various categories.
Award-winning research includes discovering effective drugs to treat the root cause of cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that affects the lungs, and the most common genetic cause of Parkinson’s disease. Masu.
Also read: Infosys award winners include Jahnavi Phalkey, Mukund Thattai
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