Tag Archives: immune

Research proposes alternative therapy against lung cancer

"It has been considered that the upturn in cases of lung cancer is possibly related to this particles," explains Patricia Gorocica from the INER, who, alongside her research team, has been working in an alternative therapy to boost the immune system of patients with this disease. The specialist adds that since several years ago is known that the immune system has all the mechanism to watch and destroy tumor cells as they develop, but sometimes this mechanisms are not effective for reasons associated to the tumor or alterations of the patients organism. Based in this principle, research at INER is directed to regulate the immune system against tumors. …

Killer cocktail fights brain cancer

Glioblastoma is the most aggressive form of brain cancer, and current treatments only modestly prolong patient survival. Immune cells called T cells have the capacity to attack and kill tumor cells, but tumors can counteract this attack by creating an environment that dampens T cell activity. T cells have ways of limiting their own activation (and thus autoimmunity), one of which is to express inhibitory cell surface proteins upon activation. In other cancer models, strategies to block these inhibitory proteins have been shown to reinvigorate T cell activation and thus promote tumor regression…

Clearest new pictures of immune cells

They show how the cells, which are responsible for fighting infections and cancer in the human body, change the organisation of their surface molecules, when activated by a type of protein found on viral-infected or tumour cells. Professor Daniel Davis, who has been leading the investigation into the immune cells, known as natural killers, said the work could provide important clues for tackling disease…