Immune system boost 'fights cancer'

By carefully adjusting the function of crucial immune cells, scientists may have developed a completely new type of cancer immunotherapy—harnessing the body's immune system to attack tumors. To accomplish this, they had to thread a needle in immune function, shrinking tumors without triggering unwanted autoimmune responses.
The new research, performed in animals, is not ready for clinical use in humans. However, the approach, making use of a key protein to control immune function, lends itself to further study using candidate drugs that employ the same mechanisms.
"This preclinical study demonstrates proof of principle that using a drug to regulate the function of a special, immunosuppressive subset of so-called T-regulatory (Treg) cells safely controls tumor growth," said study leader Wayne W. Hancock, M.D., Ph.D., of the Division of Transplant Immunology at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). "It really moves the field along towards a potentially major, new cancer immunotherapy."

Read more: 
Dialing back treg cell function boosts the body's cancer-fighting immune activity

Source: EurekAlert
Image credits: BBC

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