Because of the toxicity of chemotherapy and radiation, doctors have tried to harness the power of the immune system to fight cancer. The immune system has many specialized units, but it is the killer cells, or Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes (CTL), that are most important in cancer immunotherapy. These white blood cells “feel” other cells to find a protein called the HLA complex on the cell surface. This serves as an ID, so transplanted organs are matched to similar HLA types. The HLA complex also carries samples of the proteins made in the cell. This is important because viruses hijack cells and force them to make viral parts, which are packaged into HLA and shown to the killer cell Health Inspector, which destroys the cell.
The killer cells get their information from cells called Dendritics, (DC), which act as scouts for the immune system. They take up bits of germs and show them to the killer cells for targeting purposes. The DC can be cultured from whole blood, so DC vaccines allow us to program the immune system like a computer. This has tremendous potential for the field of cancer vaccines.
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