For more than two decades, Jeffrey Miller, MD, an M Health Fairview hematologist/oncologist, has been fascinated by natural killer (NK) cells and their cancer-fighting power.

NK cells are naturally occuring white blood cells that fight infections and other intruders, including precancerous cells. With a little coaxing in the laboratory, they can be trained to take on cancer itself. It’s an approach called NK cell therapy, and Miller and his colleagues have treated more people with it than anywhere else in the country.

Until now, NK cell therapy has been limited to treating leukemia. Only recently did Miller start to believe NK cell therapy could be used to treat other cancers—including one of the most deadly forms of brain cancer, glioblastoma.

Miller—who is deputy director of the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota and holder of the Roger L. and Lynn C. Headrick Chair in Cancer Therapeutics at the U of M Medical School—teamed up with Jianfang Ning, PhD, an assistant professor of neurology at the Medical School, to explore NK cell therapy’s potential to treat this devastating disease.

What they found surprised even Miller.

What happened when Dr. Ning tried NK cell therapy in her animal models?

The results were amazing. I must admit that I was initially skeptical and felt it was too good to be true, but after we kept repeating this result, we all became energized.

Her animal models are special because they’re derived from tumors taken from real patients, so they closely resemble what happens in people.

Why does NK cell therapy seem to be so effective against glioblastomas?

Immunotherapies like NK cell therapy have had mind-blowing success in cancers of the body, but we have not seen any such benefit in brain cancer. This is in part due to the blood-brain barrier, the immunosuppressive effects of glioblastoma, and the fact that immune cells are not “programmed” to be in or go to the brain. Our animal models have shown the potential to overcome all of these barriers.

What are the next steps in this research?

To my knowledge, no one has ever treated glioblastoma with NK cells, but we’re about to change that. We’re partnering with [M Health Fairview neuro-oncologist] Elizabeth Neil, MD, and [M Health Fairview neurosurgeon] Matthew Hunt, MD, to translate our findings into a clinical trial for people. 

This trial, which will begin later this year, includes surgery followed by injections of these cancer-killing cells directly into the brain. If it’s successful, there’s a chance that we could use NK cell therapy on its own and eliminate the need for surgery altogether.