In what could be an incredible development in the world of scientific research and the long fight against cancer, a team of researchers from Cardiff University in the UK discovered a new immune cell that could be used to treat ALL kinds of cancers.
The new immune T-cell was discovered by accident by the researchers when they were studying how the human body’s immune system responds to cancerous cells.
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T-cells have receptors that can recognize threats to the body and destroy them when discovered. In lab experiments, the new T-cell that scientists discovered has been able to recognize far more cancers than usual. Until these new findings, drugs made from human T-cells have been helpful but have only worked against a limited number of cancers and have had a hard time fighting against cancers that form tumors.
In the lab, the new T-cell found and destroyed skin, lung, colon, blood, breast, bone, prostate, ovarian, kidney and cervical cancer cells. And, on top of that, healthy cells were all left intact.
The researchers are still exploring why and how the new T-cell is so effective in the lab. The team thinks that it might be due to how the T-cell’s receptor interacts with a molecule that is on the surface of every cell in the body called MR1.
One researcher said,
“We are the first to describe a T-cell that finds MR1 in cancer cells – that hasn’t been done before, this is the first of its kind.”
The lead author of the study, Professor Andrew Sewell, added,
“It raises the prospect of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ cancer treatment; a single type of T-cell that could be capable of destroying many different types of cancers across the population. Previously nobody believed this could be possible.”
The new findings have not been tested on patients yet but the team of researchers says that this could have “enormous potential.”
Let’s keep our fingers crossed that this new discovery opens the door to fighting and eliminating cancer from our world! What a game-changer that would be!
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