The Seattle Times: Gene-therapy results touted in 2 advanced-cancer cases: "Two men, both with the rapidly growing skin cancer melanoma, were given immune-system cells taken from their own blood and engineered to attack their tumors. They are alive, with no evidence of cancer, 18 months later. Fifteen other patients who got the same treatment died.

The senior author of the study and others cautioned it would take several years to translate the treatment into a practical therapy.

The report, published online by the journal Science, is the latest result of a 30-year effort by Dr. Steven Rosenberg to find ways to manipulate the human immune system to fight cancer.
Four years ago, Rosenberg, a surgeon, and his colleagues treated a group of melanoma patients with naturally occurring anti-cancer cells extracted from their tumors, and some of those patients also have had long-term disappearance of their cancers.

The new study, however, is believed to be the first time genetically engineered immune-system cells — specifically, T lymphocytes — produced the same effect."