An injection that helps the body fight cancer as effectively as the flu could be a step closer after a scientific breakthrough.
It has long been a frustration for doctors that the body is good at fighting viruses like the flu, but bad at fighting cancer.
By studying mice with melanoma skin cancer, scientists have now discovered that tumors not only trick the immune cells around them into not recognizing their danger, but also the lymph nodes – an important part of the immune system.
They injected the mice with artificial genetic code like that found in the flu virus, which made the cancer look dangerous and made the lymph nodes react more strongly.
Dr Ed Roberts, who led the research from the Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute and the University of Glasgow, said: “These lymph nodes play an important role in the fight against cancer, but at the moment they are responding as if they were smaller There’s a cut in the skin. Finger.’
An injection that helps the body fight cancer as effectively as the flu could be a step closer to a scientific breakthrough
It has long been a frustration for doctors that the body is good at fighting viruses like the flu, but bad at fighting cancer.
He added: “By making cancer look like the flu, we can make the lymph nodes react much more aggressively.”
The cells that alert the immune system to danger are called dendritic cells.
They “eat” a piece of tumor to show it to the immune cells that must fight it, called T cells.
But the dendritic cells convey the misleading message that tumors are relatively harmless.
The researchers realized that dendritic cells were transmitting messages about tumors to the lymph nodes after they stained proteins in the tumors bright green and saw parts of them appear at the nodes.
The study, published in the journal Science Immunology, raises hopes that a similar vaccination could help human cancer patients fight the disease, although more research is still needed.
Cancer Research UK’s research director, Dr. Catherine Elliott, said: “This exciting research could help us find ways to help our own bodies fight cancer more effectively.”
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Crystal Leahy is an author and health journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a background in health and wellness, Crystal has a passion for helping people live their best lives through healthy habits and lifestyles.
