USP of Ribeirão Preto starts cell therapy against cancer – 03/14/2024 – Health

This Friday (15), the selection of people with leukemia interested in participating in a test to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of one of the forms of cell therapy called CAR-T (acronym for receptor chimeric antigen; the T refers to T lymphocytes, a group of white blood cells).

Developed in the United States in 2017, and in Brazil since 2019, by the Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto of the University of São Paulo (FMRP-USP) in collaboration with the Butantan Institute and support from Fapesp (projects 13/08135-2 and 14/50947-7), this technique consists of removing the patient’s own lymphocytes, which are manipulated in the laboratory and reapplied into the body. The goal is to prepare lymphocytes to identify and eliminate tumor cells that have not been stopped by other drug therapies.

Hematologist Diego Clé, from FMRP-USP, announced the test and explained his expectations with this form of cell therapy last Thursday (7) during the session “Great challenges in the area of ​​health” at the State Conference on Science, Technology and Innovation (CECTI), which ended on Friday (8) at the State Secretariat of Science, Technology and Innovation, in the capital of São Paulo. The objective of the meeting was to prepare suggestions and contributions from the State of São Paulo for the 5th National Conference on Science, Technology and Innovation (CNCTI), which will be held between June 4th and 6th, in Brasília.

With support from Fapesp and the Ministry of Health (MS), 81 people with leukemia and acute lymphoblastic leukemia who have not responded to other forms of treatment should participate in CAR-T therapy. Patients will initially be treated at the Hospital das Clínicas in Ribeirão Preto.

Clé commented that 20 people have already been previously treated with the cells prepared at the Ribeirão Preto Advanced Cellular Therapy Center (Nutera-RP, a Fapesp Science Center for Development), in some cases with good results. “This form of cell therapy could change the way resistant leukemias are treated, but the cost is almost prohibitive for a country like ours,” she commented. Treatment per patient can reach R$2 million, with imported medicines —Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) has already approved three for use in Brazil.

“The national product will cost one-sixth of the imported one”, estimated infectious disease doctor Esper Kallás, director of Butantan, in his presentation. This should occur because production costs will be lower. “Without this type of solution, the SUS [Sistema Único de Saúde] smash.”

Kallás emphasized the need to expand the production of vaccines, medicines and pharmaceutical inputs in Brazil. “We have infrastructure and good minds, but there are still many bureaucratic obstacles and difficulties in continuing investments,” he said.

Mental health debate

In turn, psychiatrist Jair Mari, from the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp), highlighted the perspectives of mental health, another topic discussed on Thursday afternoon. “Because of the dismantling of the system for immediate care and serious cases, even in a city like São Paulo it would be difficult to hospitalize a person who had an acute crisis,” he commented. “Where is the fault? In the lack of beds in general hospital wards.”

In his view, the priority of public policies in this area should be mental health in childhood and adolescence, when mental disorders emerge. “Depression appears in adolescence, especially among girls,” he said. Another suggestion was the dissemination of programs for identifying and preventing mental disorders in schools.

During the first session of the afternoon, Guilherme Polanczyk, from the Department of Psychiatry at the Faculty of Medicine of USP, and geneticist Carolini Kaid, from the startup Vyro, also made presentations.

Impacts of AI

Sociologist Fausto Augusto Jr., from the Inter-Union Department of Statistics and Socioeconomic Studies (Dieese), spoke in the second part of the afternoon, during the session “Digital transition and artificial intelligence”. He commented that artificial intelligence (AI) amplifies the impact caused by other major technological changes, such as industry 4.0, by intensifying the precariousness of work, making working hours and work contracts more flexible, reducing the supply of jobs (mainly those in tasks repetitive), weaken collective organizations such as unions and hinder the construction of professional identities.

“AI, like the changes caused by fire, agriculture and industry before it, has the potential to change us as workers, citizens and human beings,” he commented. “We will increase our social inequalities if we think that the market will discipline the technological transition.” For him, negotiation between companies and workers would be one of the ways to mitigate the impact of new technologies.

“We are living in a moment of excessive euphoria in AI, it seems that everything will work out, but programs can still hallucinate and pass false information”, observed electrical engineer Fabio Cozman, from the USP Polytechnic School. He was one of the authors of the document “Recommendations for the advancement of artificial intelligence in Brazil”, launched in November 2023 by the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC).

In his opinion, the bill on AI, under discussion in the National Congress, “perhaps is excessively inflexible”, he commented. “It would be better to let the bodies themselves develop their policies, as the TSE has already done [Tribunal Superior Eleitoral] for the elections.”

Economist Dora Kaufman, from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP), in turn, proposed that the State of São Paulo should create a body to lead proposals for regulating the use of AI, diagnose applications, risks for users and create a kind of “governance framework”. According to her, this framework would include the information to be required from AI program managers and the monitoring of risks to users.

Other speakers at the second session of the afternoon were computer scientist Anderson Rocha, from the Computing Institute of the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), and systems analyst Maria Cristina Domingues, from the Technological Research Institute of the State of São Paulo (IPT). .

The video with the last two sessions on Thursday can be accessed here.