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Training an Immune System To Kill Cancer
NotSanguine sends in a story about William Ludwig, a 65-year-old leukemia patient who underwent a new, experimental treatment that draws upon two decades of advances in molecular biology. Quoting:
"Doctors removed a billion of his T-cells — a type of white blood cell that fights viruses and tumors — and gave them new genes that would program the cells to attack his cancer. Then the altered cells were dripped back into Mr. Ludwig’s veins. At first, nothing happened. But after 10 days, hell broke loose in his hospital room. He began shaking with chills. His temperature shot up. His blood pressure shot down. He became so ill that doctors moved him into intensive care and warned that he might die. His family gathered at the hospital, fearing the worst. A few weeks later, the fevers were gone. And so was the leukemia. ... In essence, the team is using gene therapy to accomplish something that researchers have hoped to do for decades: train a person's own immune system to kill cancer cells."
http://xkcd.com/938/
Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
I can't gauge the validity of this research without a mention of subluxations as a calibration reference for my stupidity detector.
Blank until
The evidence for I am Legend is better than for the American Revolution, after all, they have actual video for I am Legend, but not for the American Revolution. So really, believe what you want, but I prefer things I can see.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
A killer T cell is an end product cell type. It does not divide.
T-cells are differentiated cells, but they most certainly do undergo clonal expansion.
(T cells destroy pathogens, but they also pass antigen information on to B cells, which "remember" previous infectious agents, and mass replicate antibodies in the hystamine cycle. This mechanism is how vaccination works.
Huh? "Histamine Cycle"?
Deactivated virus is introduced, white cells engage, destroy, and then present the debris to B cells, which produce antibodies. When the real virus comes along, the immine system reacts with a flood of antibody production, which greatly inhibits proliferation of the pathogen
This description relates to the humoral branch of the adaptive immune system, but is irrelevant here. The treatment in question primarily operates via a cell-mediated mechanism.
In this case, researchers would have to be VERY careful what cellular membrane cues they program their new mutant superhero T cells to go after, or else the body may become sensitized against its own cellular membranes, resulting in runaway autoimmune reactions.)
Target cue was CD19, a B-cell specific receptor (but not cancer-specific receptor). Hence the patient's ensuing state of hypo-gammaglobulinemia, due to indiscriminant destruction of antibody-producing cells.
Moderators, please refrain from moderation when not sufficiently versed in a field to accurately gauge the value of a post.
His fiancee has stage three breast cancer. I see it only as a way of coping with the pain and uncertainty that situation brings.