Nasopharyngeal cancer is most prevalent in South China and kills one in every three victims. The disease is thought to be linked to diets rich in preserved foods, like salted fish.

Scientists will soon test an experimental treatment for nose and throat cancer that will train the patient's own white blood cells to fight the disease. Some classes of T-cells have memory. Once these cells are taken from the patient and are exposed to invaders that they successfully fought off, they should launch the same response when they are re-introduced back into the patients own body.

One of the researchers stated "We expect the T-cells to initiate a very aggressive inflammatory reaction and during the process, not only will the T-cells attack the cancer cells, but other immune cells in the body will be called in to eradicate the cancer cells".

Our immune system usually does not kill off tumors. Cancer cells are our own cells that have changed and become malignant but the immune system still recognizes these cells as our own.

Scientists are working on a way to get our immune system to fight the cancer. One way they are doing this by taking a patient's T cells, white blood cells that can recognize and attack foreign invaders, and genetically modifying them.

After altering a patient's T cells they are put back into the patient to see if the new modified T cells go after the cancer cells and kill the tumor. A study was done on 17 patients with advanced melanoma. All the conventional treatments for the disease had already failed for these patients.

In two of the 17 patients the treatment worked and the cancer disappeared. The other 15 however did not get any benefit in the treatment. The finding however has created excitement and hope among cancer experts.

Doctors and scientists are confident that gene therapy could provide the key to curing a wide range of major diseases.

I wonder why it only worked on two of the patients. Why not the other 15? One of the lucky ones that responded to the treatment was Mark Origer from Watertown, Wisconsin. Mark thought he was going to die of his advanced melanoma before his daughter was married. He had a dream come true when he was able to attend his daughter's wedding and walk her down the aisle.

Thanks to Patti Anastasi for the tip

After a patient receives a bone marrow transplant they are watched very closely for signs of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD).

When a patient receives a transplant of say a heart or liver, that patient is given drugs so that the body will not reject the organs. Your body does not recognize the organs as a part of you and the immune system will attack.

With GVHD it is the same concept but with a bone marrow transplant you are getting someone else's immune system. This foreign immune system does not recognize your organs and can then attack them. GVHD can affect different parts of the body such as the skin, eyes, stomach and intestines. GVHD can sometimes be easily treated and controlled or other times can be deadly.

GVHD can be acute or chronic. It is considered acute if it occurs within the first 100 days after the transplant and chronic if it persists or develops after day 100.

This study focuses on chronic GVHD and looks to determine the natural history of the disease and assess biological factors that may predict outcomes.