Scientist's Find Cancer killing Cell Accidently by British scientists.

A new sort of immune cell which kills most cancers has been discovered accidentally by British scientists, during a finding which could herald a serious breakthrough in treatment.

Researchers at Cardiff University were analysing blood from a bank in Wales, trying to find immune cells that would fight bacteria, once they found a completely new sort of T-cell.

That new immune cell carries a never-before-seen receptor which acts sort of a grapnel , latching on to most human cancers, while ignoring healthy cells.

In laboratory studies, immune cells equipped with the new receptor were shown to kill lung, skin, blood, colon, breast, bone, prostate, ovarian, kidney and cervical cancer.

Professor Andrew Sewell, lead author on the study and an expert in T-cells from Cardiff University’s School of drugs , said it had been “highly unusual” to seek out a cell that had broad cancer-fighting therapies, and raised the prospect of a universal therapy.

“This was a serendipitous finding, nobody knew this cell existed,” Prof Sewell told The Telegraph.

“Our finding raises the prospect of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ cancer treatment, one sort of T-cell that would be capable of destroying many various sorts of cancers across the population. Previously nobody believed this might be possible.”

Asked if it meant that somebody in Wales was walking around completely resistant to cancer, Prof Sewell said: “Possibly. This immune cell might be quite rare, or it might be that many people have this receptor except for some reason it's not activated. We just do not know yet.”

Therapies which engineer immune cells to fight specific sorts of cancer exist already , but they're currently only useful for a few sorts of leukaemia, and don't work for solid tumours, which account for many cancers.

Those treatments - referred to as CAR-T and TCR-T therapies - involve taking immune cells from a patient which are then altered in order that they can lock onto molecules which sit on the surface of cancer cells.

The cells are then grown in huge numbers and injected back to the patient’s bloodstream.

CAR-T therapy is now given surely sorts of leukaemia but doesn't work for solid tumours, the overwhelming majority of cancers. TCR-T therapies can add another cancers but they have to lock onto molecules called HLA, which vary widely within the population.

In contrast, the new cell attaches to a molecule on cancer cells called MR1, which doesn't vary in humans.