Engineering a Cure/ Whitney Teague

Melanoma- any of several types of skin tumors characterized by the malignant growth of melanocytes.
Isolate- Medicine/Medical. to keep (an infected person) from contact with noninfected persons; quarantine.

Immunologist- a medical scientist who specializes in immunogly.

SUMMARY
When putting a gene into normal immune cells, isolated from melanoma patients, scientist turned the cells into cancer fighters. To do this, researchers isolate a patient's most aggressive tumor T cells and multiply them in the lab. Doctors destroy the patient's remaining T cells and replace them with the anticancer versions. If all goes well, these cells home in on tumors and kill them. Adoptive cell transfer isn't a viable treatment for the majority of people with cancer, explains Steven A. Rosenberg of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda. Only half of melanoma patients seem to have these specialized tumor-killing T cells, and the cells that target other types of cancers such as breast, lung, and liver cancer are "very difficult to find" in people with those diseases.