Cancer patients now have another treatment option, rather than physically debilitating chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Molecular-targeted biotherapy has a bright future for the treatment of tumors as the side effects are less pronounced, according to Hao Xishan, president of Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital (TMUCIH) and an academic at the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Compared with chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which inevitably cause severe damage to the immune system, biotherapy is a promising weapon in the battle against cancer, Hao says. It can kill cancer cells and at the same time strengthen normal cells. Combining biotherapy with conventional clinical approaches has greatly extended the lives of cancer patients.

TMUCIH, one of the country's largest biotherapy centers, has recently inked an agreement with Japan's Takara Bio Inc (Takara) to launch a research project on T-cell receptor (TCR) gene therapy against refractory cancer - for which surgery is ineffective and which is initially unresponsive to chemo- or radiation therapy.