From the Economist
A potential anti-cancer therapy
Identifying the enemy within
Sep 22nd 2009
From Economist.com
http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/tm/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14490433&source=hptextfeature
A lovely crossover of molecular biology (in this case, cancer and immunology) with materials science– an interdisciplinary favour. Using an implant with GM-CSF, which attracts a dendritic cell, a type of antigen presentation cell. The dendritic cell carries its duty by presenting a bacterial / viral antigen to a cytotoxic (killer) T cell and carries out the execution. The result is clearly ‘ encouraging’ because it serves to teach the dendritic cell, which is not quite good at dealing with cancer cells, the way to do that. A further development of this biodegradable materials will be to target other important diseases such as inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
By Ed Law 23/9/2009 ^o^
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