Sleeping Immune Cells Can Be ‘Woken Up’ to Fight With the Most Deadly Cancers
Cancer cells are now able to disable the immune cells that are capable of killing them. The switch is meant for much more innocent reasons, such as allowing a child to be carried and now Cancer Research UK scientists are aware of a way to…
Cancer cells are now able to disable the immune cells that are capable of killing them. The switch is meant for much more innocent reasons, such as allowing a child to be carried and now Cancer Research UK scientists are aware of a way to reverse the process and let the system realise that there are cancerous cells present. The immune cells still have a big part to play, but the scientists set the process in motion.
Dr. Sergio Quezada has said that the discovery is an exciting one and that they will be able to attack cancer using just the cells responsible for recognizing and attacking cancer. A biopsy would be taken and by working out which immune cells are present, it will show it to be the ones that were fighting cancer before they were turned off.The treatment would work by taking a biopsy of a tumour and then identify immune cells that are already inside. Those cells are likely to me most effective as the fact that they are in the tumour suggests they were trying to attack it before they got switched off.
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TALEN is then used; this is a technique that genetically edits the cell and the start to multiply. They will then be able to fight cancer effectively and also stop it from coming back. The tests have been carried out on mice and the tumours shrunk by up to 80%. Cancer Research’s Dr. Alan Worsley is excited by the findings and believes they are halting the switching off process. Unlike chemotherapy that works for a small period, this will carry on, and there are already certain drugs of this type already available. The problem is that there are side effects and in some cases the immune system attacks cells that are still healthy.
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Helena Marsh
Helena Marsh is the Editor-in-Chief at TrendinTech, where she leads editorial strategy and oversees coverage across artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and enterprise technology. With more than a decade in technology journalism on both sides of the Atlantic, she previously served as a senior editor at Wired UK and covered the technology sector for The Guardian, following the rise of the big platforms, the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the regulatory push from Brussels and Washington. Helena holds an MA in Journalism from City, University of London and is a regular speaker at Web Summit in Lisbon and CES in Las Vegas. She believes technology reporting should be rigorous and plainly written, so readers understand what actually changes for them rather than what a company's announcement promises.
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