Implant Raises Cellular Army To Attack Cancer

holy_calamity writes "New Scientist reports on a sneaky new approach to getting the immune system to fight cancer. An implant releases a 'molecular perfume' irresistible to messenger immune cells, which enter the implant where they are given a sample of the cancer's 'scent' and a disperse signal that sends them scurrying to the nearest lymph node. There they convince other immune cells to start attacking anything that matches the sample they picked up."

Comments

Re:uhhh

[Kranfer]

I am a layman myself as well. I think this is encouraging for anyone out there who is sick... However, I am still wondering if the whole stem cell way of doing things for cancer research is the better approach. However after RTA I did see that all of the control group died and the mice with the implant 90% were cured. I would want to read a real paper on it in a journal. Just as a though.... What would happen if the implants do not work on all human beings / test animals/subjects whatever... Say... your body just starts literally killing ALL cells... cancer and normal... I am just wondering if they have a way to stop the process if they need to... Ah well. Good work Doctors!

Easily abused as a biological weapon.

[plasmacutter]

Incorporate this in bullets and you get 100% lethality.

"cellular army bullet" enters body, tip takes sample of nearby healthy cells, programs immune system to attack own body, person dies horrible death to both his own immune system and the pathogens which are now left alone by the distracted immune system.

Re:Easily abused as a biological weapon.

[plasmacutter]

It would already be trivially easy to make bullets that contained a lethal toxin, the reason we don't do it isn't because of inability. Yes, you could misuse this research (just like any other advance) but it certainly wouldn't be the bio-weapon of choice due to sheer inefficiency and slowness of effect.

that's the beauty of it. It's a terror weapon.

it will leave you in agony for days, weeks, or months knowing you will die.

Re:Easily abused as a biological weapon.

[canajin56]

If it was that simple, you just need to aerosol the "disperse" signal, which the summary implies makes your immune cells immediately attack anything that matches what they were near at the time...fortunately for everybody, it's not nearly so simple. If it was, how could the chemical signal in question possibly exist? If your body ever released it, SOME cells would be closer to each other or other important cells! Almost as though the summary was a dumbed down explanation of how it sort of works? Plus if you want a poison bullet just fill it with cyanide? Or nicotine, which is a much more concentrated poison?

Anyways, how this works is, these cells are exposed to concentrated antigens, specifically targeted and formulated in the lab before injection. Cancer is mostly just like your own body. But cancer cells make their own proteins. The body ignores them sometimes, saying "oh they're coming from me, must be harmless," which is bad. But if you rub your immune systems nose in it and say "Spread the word", as it were, it can be forced into attacking it whatever is making these proteins. I believe there's been limited success with just injecting large amounts of antigen, but your body doesn't always get the hint. What we see here is a combination of getting high concentrations of antigen, with a technique for making sure the body actually sends immune cells to investigate! I'm not sure what happens if you gather up a large concentration of natural bodily proteins, but I think in most cases it won't trigger an autoimmune response. And you certainly have to do that concentration in a lab, not in a bullet ;)

Unfortunately...

[philspear]

However after RTA I did see that all of the control group died and the mice with the implant 90% were cured.

I hate to say it, but that's over-interpreting. This appears to have warded off imminent death in the mice, which is a result that is very encouraging. Unfortunately, it likely did not -cure- the mice. When we see data indicating these mice have a 5-year survival which is greater than the control (uh... or whatever the equivalent is since even healthy mice maybe don't live 5 years) then I too will be celebrating.

The immune system would sort of be vaccinated against markers on the cancer cells, but there's no guarantee that every cancer cell will have the marker and will keep it. You can imagine that if 99% of the cells in a tumor do have it, the tumor may be killed by the primed cells, but that 1% that doesn't will repopulate a while later.

Of course, this may have a feedback effect. I'm no immunologist, but I would hazard a guess that if a tumor were being attacked in this manner, the increased activity in the area may start targeting that 1% too. Maybe. That could also be a downside, as you can imagine if the immune system is primed but learns the wrong marker, you suddenly have an autoimmune disease on top of the cancer. Once again, I'm not an immunologist, so I don't know whether that's pure crap or not.

So it's another good finding, and of course a way to fight tumors is a miracle to a patient even if it's not a complete cure. It might be a total cure, but let's not set ourselves up for dissapointment.

Re:Unfortunately...

[Metasquares]

You can imagine that if 99% of the cells in a tumor do have it, the tumor may be killed by the primed cells, but that 1% that doesn't will repopulate a while later.

This is why we haven't cured the disease yet. The tumor evolves and all that our treatments do, if they are unable to kill off the entire tumor, is select for cells that are resistant. I'm not an oncologist, although I am involved in medical research, but it seems to me that a more effective strategy would be to select for cells that are specifically weak to conventional treatment prior to administering it. Just as in machine classification*, a combination of individually effective treatments that work in different ways should tend to perform best, especially if resistance to one implies weakness to another.

*Because cancer treatment is really just one big classification problem: you want to kill all of the cancer cells and none of the normal ones. Get the sensitivity to 100% (all cancer cells killed) with a high enough specificity (most normal cells left alone) and you win.

Re:uhhh

[macklin01]

I am just wondering if they have a way to stop the process if they need to... Ah well. Good work

There has been recent work to treat autoimmune diseases by "erasing" the immune system's "memory" (e.g., memory B cells) by attacking the marrow with chemotherapy, then reseeding the system with harvested haematopoietic stem cells. Here's an example I find after a fast search. Of course, it leaves the patient with 0 immune system while it regenerates from the stem cells, and I'd imagine you'd have to redo all your vaccinations, etc., but I suppose that could do the trick. -- Paul

Re:uhhh

[AngelofDeath-02]

Not only that, but you can stop administering chemotherapy and your body recovers. There is no known way to stop your immune system from attacking your body without leaving you open to all kinds of shit...

Re:uhhh

[stimpleton]

During the 2nd World War, soldiers recieved cigarettes in their ration pack. Smoking was essentially endorsed by the government back then.

My grandfather started smoking from those cigarettes, survived the war, and died of lung cancer some years back.

As for "and annoying the hell out of everyone around you", you are just conditioned to that view now from modern marketing from government and medical institutions who now realise that smoking costs them money.

American physicians *endorsed* cigattes in US servicemen's ration packs till 1975.

I suggest you look beyond the surface of the individual.

Re:uhhh

[PReDiToR]

I've been thinking about that whole "filling lungs up with crap" thing for a while. I came to the conclusion that it is (probably) solvable.

The film The Abyss uses a plot device where the divers use an oxygenated liquid to manage the affects of deep diving. Apparently this is a real world technology. "Researching" this post led me to the article on it.
Given then, that liquids can be used in the lungs over periods of time, what is to stop this liquid having some kind of detergent introduced to it?

Re:uhhh

[PReDiToR]

In answer to all three comments (currently); how about some mild acidic compound?
Coca Cola isn't pleasant when you inhale it, but look at the cleaning properties. Use O2 instead of CO2 and we could be on a winner.

I also had a thought about how to introduce and remove the liquid without such evil choking as depicted by the film.
A mild anaesthetic could be used in the liquid for a few seconds, invert the patient, then introduce air through the tube. Numbing the trachea should help drainage and removal of the tube.

Bear in mind this isn't even alpha stage planning =)

TGN1412

[maestro371]

It'll be interesting to see how human trials go. The last time I saw cytokines referenced, it was in relation to this drug:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGN1412

Looked great in animal studies; not so great for the humans involved.