Gene therapy has reported unprecedented levels of success in destroying cancer cells. According to doctors, advancements in the treatment of leukemia and other blood-related cancers have successfully used gene therapy by transforming the blood cells of leukemia patients to seek and destroy cancer.

"It's really exciting," Dr. Janice Abkowitz, blood diseases chief at the University of Washington in Seattle and president of the American Society of Hematology told MSN News. "You can take a cell that belongs to a patient and engineer it to be an attach cell."

Several years ago, a number of patients with one type of leukemia were subjected to a one-time experimental treatment. To this day, these patients remain cancer-free. The result of the experiment led to six research groups who are now treating more than 120 cancer patients with different blood and bone marrow cancers. The results of the treatments are stunning, according to the research groups.

For example, patients who were gravely ill with no medical options were subjected to treatments. The treatments included five adults and 19 children out of 22 with acute lymphocytic leukemia who are now cancer-free. Before the treatment, these had tried multiple bone marrow transplants and had been treated with 10 types of chemotherapy. However, some of the patients in this research have also experienced relapse.

Doctors who are actively involved in this breakthrough said that the gene therapy approach to combat cancer is the first to be approved in the U.S. and the first for cancer treatment around the world.

"What we are giving essentially is a living drug" - permanently altered cells that multiply in the body into an army to fight the cancer," Dr. David Porter, a University of Pennsylvania scientist who led one study, told MSN News.

Currently, there are drug and biotech companies that are developing such therapies. The University of Pennsylvania has patented its approach and has given licensed to Novartis AG, a pharmaceutical company that is based in Switzerland. The pharmaceutical company is building a research center on the Philadelphia campus. Novartis plans a clinical trial next year, which could lead to a federal approval by 2016.