Cancer trial results show power of weaponized antibodies
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03421-8
NEWS
02 November 2023
Cancer trial results show power of weaponized antibodies
Tumour-targeting antibodies coupled with toxic chemicals are an unprecedented success in treating bladder cancer.
Heidi Ledford
It’s rare to get a standing ovation at a scientific conference. But on 22 October, cancer researcher Thomas Powles received two.
The first came in the middle of his talk, after he announced that a combination of treatments cut the risk of death in people with advanced bladder cancer by more than half — an unprecedented result in a cancer for which survival rates have been almost unchanged since the 1980s.
Powles, who works at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, says he was surprised by the response, and stumbled through to the end of his presentation, at which point he was met with another ovation. “People were just glad that I finished.”
Powles was not the only person to present promising data for a class of cancer treatments called antibody–drug conjugates (ADCs) at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress, held in Madrid on 20–24 October. Further data from trials in breast cancer and other types of tumour added to the momentum of the technology, which uses cancer-targeting antibodies to deliver toxic agents to tumours.
[...]