A new frontier has been opened in the war on cancer. We all know the toxic effects of chemotherapy and radiation therapy on the body. Now imagine if we can use our healthy bodies to fight cancer for us. Our understanding of how the immune system works has led us to this point in medicine. We are on the cusp of new medical breakthroughs that can be tailor made to each individual when treating cancer. I will try to simplify immunotherapy (#immunotherapy) and how it works in simple terms.
What Is Immunotherapy?
Immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment designed to boost the body’s natural defenses to fight cancer. Our immune system is a complex system of natural defenses designed to protect our bodies from infections, inflammation and foreign objects. For the sake of simplicity, there are three basic types of immune system cells with the sole purpose of defending the body. The first type is called B cells which is a lymphocyte. B cells come from stem cells and bone marrow with encoded information from our DNA searching for known invaders (pathogens). The calls have trigger points that can attach itself to a specific bacteria as an example that is known to be dangerous. Once the B cell has attached itself to the bacteria, signals are sent out for the body to produce antibodies which either kill the infecting bacteria or helps transport it out of the body.
The second type of cells are called T cells which are also lymphocytes. These also come from stem cells and bone marrow but work a little different. There are two types of T cells: helper T cells and killer T cells. Both T cells not only have specific attachment points to distinguish a pathogen but it also needs to process part of the pathogen in order to function. The action is similar to the function of a vaccine where a sterile portion of the pathogen is injected so your immune system can be activated. Helper T cells will process portions of the pathogen and alert killer T cells into action. Killer T cells will go throughout the body looking for this specific pathogen binding site in infected as well as healthy cells. Once all of these cells have been killed off and the infection has stopped, you need someone to clean up. That is when the third type comes into play called macrophages which are a type of white blood cells. It breaks down all the chemical components of a dead cell and prepares it for waste.
The breakthrough has come from the treatment of leukemia (#cancer). Leukemia is a cancer of blood-forming tissues that stops body’s ability to fight infection. While testing for possible cures, a new treatment was found by gaining control over killer T cells in the host’s body. The T cells (#Tcells) from a person’s bloodstream were taken, reprogrammed with new DNA instructions using a virus and then re-injected into the body to target the cells responsible for leukemia. The results from this treatment has been very effective.
If you take it one step further, there are patients like young children who don’t have enough T cells in their bodies to fight infections. So T cells from other hosts have been re-engineered to be universal fighters by reducing their chemical structure to the point where it is accepted by all patients. The changes were performed at the genetic level in such a way that it does its job of killing cancer cells while doing little or no damage to its host. If you think of the possibilities, this type of treatment can also lead to new treatments for HIV and autoimmune diseases like arthritis and multiple sclerosis.
Currently we see similar treatments being applied such as allergy immunotherapy which is not life threatening. When a young person develops asthma for example, he will go to an allergist to get allergy shots. The allergen is injected into your body so your immune system can generate a response and treat it or be less sensitive to the allergy. It is similar to a vaccine treatment and has been found effective for rhinitis, asthma, conjunctivitis or stinging insect. Now if you want to avoid needles all together, medical tests have created sublingual immunotherapy which gives a patient small doses of an allergen under the tongue to boost tolerance and reduce symptoms. By going this route, you avoid weekly doctor’s office visits and can be performed at home like a prescription pill.
Everyone is looking to use immunotherapy for cancer cures. The big pharmaceutical companies are investing in smaller companies that have this technology. It is not necessarily just about the science aspect of it. It turns out, that you need to use mathematical algorithms to figure out the molecular structure needed to program T cells to treat cancer cells. T cells have multiple binding sites and function independently. Understanding their capabilities requires huge amounts of data. What used to take 7 months to test now take 7 days to verify using analytics.
The mathematical data can provide visual images about what immune system cells are actually doing inside a tumor and new clues about how to influence them. Companies like Google which are about data are using this information for possible treatments on other autoimmune disorders, like diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and lupus.
We are still in the early stages of development as well as trying to map out exactly how the T cells actually work. But there are risks associated with this learning since it is trial and error. If you program the cells incorrectly, you face the prospect of a patients death since they will attack the host. You also have the chance that the reprogrammed T cells will kill off the other T cells in the immune system. this will cause a patient to get very sick due to a compromised immune system. Then you can add that it has to go through human trial testing before it becomes available to the general population. We are still years away from that option. Finally comes the ethical question of whether we should re-engineer our bodies. In essence, we are playing god to save ourselves from the natural cycle of life and death.
If you were dying, would you risk time for a chance at being cured using immunotherapy?