TeachableMedicalNews article 11282021

Teachable moment in classrooms:

  1. cellular basis of life chapter – mitosis
  2. cellular basis of life chapter – many types of receptor proteins are located in the cell membrane
  3. immune system chapter – the roles of white blood cells in immune defense

The news item:  Recently the following news report was published:

Immune discovery ‘may treat all cancer’

Research is at an early stage but scientists said it had huge potential for destroying cancers.

 

The article states that researchers found a new type of T cell that has the potential to attack cancer cells from virtually all regions of the body, and that potential is based on a molecule called MR1.

So, Why Do I Care??  Various types of cancers kill over 600,000 people in the USA. Cancer treatments vary according to the type and stage of the cancer. Any discovery that opens up the possibility of a unified cancer treatment is a reason for renewed hope among current and future cancer patients.

Plain English, Please!!!

First, let’s talk about what cancer is. Our cells have to divide (undergo mitosis) to make new cells for repair or to replace worn out cells. When cell keep on dividing even after the tissue repair or cell replacement is done, then cancerous growth begins. There are many reasons why normal cells turn cancerous, but any way you slice it, the only way to fight cancer is to remove the abnormally dividing cells.

Second, let’s talk about the multitudes of cancer treatments. Surgery can remove most of the cancer cells, but the leftover cancer cells, especially the ones that spread to several organs, are removed different way. Those few cancer cells that spread far and wide need to be destroyed, need to be killed. Scientists devised chemotherapy drugs that stop cell division, and kill cancer cells. A new way to kill cancer cells is to unleash the patients’ immune cells to seek out and destroy those cancer cells. There are many chemotherapy and immunotherapy treatment regimens for each cancer type, so when you add them together, there are hundreds of different kinds of cancer treatments.

Third, let’s talk about why this new discovery of a group of T cells might lead to unified cancer treatment. In our immune system T cells (T lymphocytes), one type of the white blood cells, can identify molecular signatures. It works like facial identification software which allows your smart phone camera to identify faces. The identification system in T cells is using receptors on the surface of the T cells, and those receptors are capable of telling apart different molecules.  Each of us have about one billion groups of T cells to recognize one billion different molecular signatures. For example, the T cells that recognize the molecular signature of coronavirus then seek out and kill cells infected by that virus. But those T cells don’t attack the cells infected with influenza virus. Another group of T cells recognize and attack those infected cells. Our article states that scientists found a group of T cells that are able to recognize, and then kill cells that have the generic “cancer cell” signature. That molecular signature is carried by the MR1 molecule on the cancer cells. That group of T cells has facial detection software to pick out MR1-carrying cancer cells from among the healthy cells. In other words, the article demonstrated that our bodies have the natural ability to kill all types of cancer cells while leaving healthy cell unharmed. Future research will determine if this new group of T cells can be utilized in a directed immunotherapy where a single group of T cells may destroy all different types of cancer cells. That would represent a unified cancer treatment.

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