Our Immunity vs Cancers
The immune system (defence) relies on an intricate network of alarm bells, targets and safety brakes to determine when and what to attack. Once a threat is idenfied, defence system develops capacity to attack the dangers posed. They fight until either the enemy is defeated/eradicated or the defence system’s resources are exhausted.
The new results from Washington University School of Medicine, suggest that scientists may now be able to combine DNA sequencing data with their knowledge of the triggers and targets that set off immune alarms...
It is interesting to realize how our defence system was designed to defeat or eradicate the mutated proteins, an altered form of spectrin-beta2 that are present in all tumor cells. Schreiber from Washington University School of Medicine, calls the spectrin-beta2 mutation identified in the study “low-hanging fruit,” noting that it’s such a red flag to the immune system that its presence normally leads the immune system to assault cancer cells without any prompting from immunotherapy.
He and his colleagues are currently sequencing DNA in tumors grown from mice with normal immune systems to see if they can identify mutations that are not as readily discernible to the immune system.
“The idea would be to make a vaccine that helps the immune system recognize and attack six or seven of these mutated proteins in a cancer,” he says... “Therapeutically, that could be very helpful.”
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Source:
dddmag.com
Washington University School of Medicine
