Jennifer Matthews: This is no ordinary science lesson. Ed Bauter is getting a glimpse of the technology that saved his life. At 14, he was diagnosed with lymphoma. Doctors offered him an experimental treatment.
Ed Bauter: I didn't think that I really had anything to lose doing a stud. So, I went on with it, and it's worked great so far.
Bruce Levine: What's special about the process that we've developed is we activate the cells in a way that no one else had been able to do previously.
Jennifer Matthews: Doctors remove white blood cells and bring them to the lab. Here, they're multiplied and mixed with beads attached to a protein. When the new cells are put back into the body, they're better able to attack foreign substances, like the cancer.
Bruce Levine: What we want to do is tilt the balance in favor of the immune system and away from the tumor or lymphoma.
Jennifer Matthews: In a study of 16 patients, five went into complete remission, seven had partial remission, and four had their disease stabilize.
Bruce Levine: Given that this was a very advanced, very ill population of patients, the responses that we saw were very encouraging for using this technique.
Jennifer Matthews: And gratifying to see it work for people like Ed.
Ed Bauter: With what I was diagnosed with 10 to 15 years ago, I would not have had a chance.
Jennifer Matthews: Not only is he alive, he's getting ready to start college in the fall. This is Jennifer Matthews reporting.
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