Demystifying the Immune System
"Lung cancer is a formidable foe with many ways of eluding the immune system--but we are developing multiple approaches to using immunotherapy as a treatment option." Gregory Beatty, MD, PhD
Our immune systems are sophisticated, highly evolved and multi-dimensional. They look for and attack invaders. They fight infections, heal wounds and maintain our body health. But do they recognize and fight cancer? And if not, why not?
The answer is complicated. The immune system does, at least in some instances, recognize and attack cancer cells, including lung cancer cells--but in many cases, it fails to eradicate these cells. New research indicates that cancer cells actually develop ways of co-opting the immune system, teaching it to help the cancer grow and spread. This says Dr. Beatty is "bad education," and the goal of immunotherapy research is to re-educate the immune system to attack cancer cells.
At Penn, researchers are using a number of approaches. These include:
- Cancer cells have the ability to produce STOP signals that prevent the immune system from recognizing them. One approach to immunotherapy is to develop specific antibodies that go after these STOP signals and block them. One example is the PD-1 blocking antibody.
- CAR-T or chimeric antigen receptors use specially engineered killer T-cells to attack cancer cells. These T-cells are harvested from the patients, go through an amazing process by which they are "re-programmed" to attack the patient's tumor, and then re-injected. The results for several cancers have been promising--with trials scheduled to begin for non small cell lung cancers.
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