CRISPR makes cancer cells turncoats that attack their tumor, mouse study finds
As an idea for wiping out cancer, it could have been ripped from the pages of a spy thriller: Take cancer cells that have departed the original tumor and spread elsewhere in the body, genome-edit them to be stone-cold killers, then wait for the homesick cells to return and make like émigré assassins.
In a study four years in the making, scientists reported on Wednesday that “rehoming” cells that had been CRISPR’d to attack cells in the original tumor improved survival in lab mice with brain cancer, as well as in mice with breast cancer that spread to the brain.