A patient at the Royal Free Hospital has become the first in the world to undergo a new treatment for leukaemia.

Joanne Scott, 53, has been treated with ‘natural killer’ (NK) cells from her daughter in a method invented by a Royal Free team.

NK cells are a type of immune cell that kill tumours and are present in everyone. Some tumours, however, are resistant to them.

Doctors and scientists at the Hampstead hospital have found a way to turn them into tumour-activated NK (TaNK) cells, which are able to kill even NK-resistant tumours.

They are being funded by the Leukaemia Research Fund to carry out a trial on 15 patients with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) for whom conventional treatment has failed.

Ms Scott, a fashion designer, was diagnosed with AML three years ago, the same day her clothing line, Tara Starlet — named after her 21-year-old daughter Tara — was launched in Topshop.

She was treated with chemotherapy and a transplant of her own stem cells, but kept suffering relapses.

She said: “There was nothing else that could be done, but then my doctor suggested this trial and I jumped at it. I am quite a pioneering spirit.

“Tara was excited by it too as she has always wanted to do something to help me. I felt that I have given her life and now she is giving me life.”

For the treatment, Miss Scott was connected to a machine that removed blood from her arms for three hours.

Those cells were then manipulated in a laboratory so they could target cancer cells, before being transfused into her mother on July 31.

Doctors chose to use Miss Scott’s cells rather than her mother’s so they would not have to be stored while Ms Scott had a course of chemotheraphy in preparation for the treatment.

Last week tests showed the cells were multiplying in Ms Scott’s body, which doctors hope means they have started killing resistant tumour cells.

Dr Mark Lowdell, who led the research, said: “Joanne was very brave. She was the first person in the world to have this and it could have done terrible things.

“The aims of the trial are to ensure the treatment is safe and to demonstrate that the cells have established themselves in Joanne’s bone marrow.

“We will not know whether the cells are doing their job of killing the resistant cells for some months.

“But this could be a relatively inexpensive treatment. We can give repeat infusions until the patient is cured.

“It has a potentially very great role.”