In a promising new step toward better cancer treatments, researchers in France have found a way to help the immune system attack and destroy certain types of blood cancer more effectively.
The team from Institut Pasteur and Inserm developed a new triple-drug therapy that forces cancer cells to die in a way that alerts the immune system and triggers a powerful response.
The goal of immunotherapy is to help the body’s own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. This approach has already changed the way doctors treat many types of cancer, especially in cases where standard treatments like chemotherapy don’t work well.
Immune cells are like the body’s watchmen—constantly on the lookout for invaders or damaged cells. But in some cancers, especially blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma that affect B cells, the immune system can struggle to see or destroy the tumor cells.
The scientists focused on a special kind of cell death called necroptosis. Normally, cells can die quietly through a process called apoptosis. This process doesn’t cause inflammation or alert the immune system.
Necroptosis, on the other hand, is a louder kind of death—it sends out signals that warn the immune system something is wrong. These signals can attract immune cells to the area and help them attack any remaining tumor cells.
But there’s a problem: the cancerous B cells involved in leukemia and lymphoma don’t usually go through necroptosis because they lack a key protein called MLKL. Without this protein, the pathway that leads to necroptosis doesn’t work properly.
To fix this, the researchers tried combining three drugs that are already used in hospitals for other treatments. When given together, these drugs triggered necroptosis in the cancer cells—even without the MLKL protein. Once the cancer cells started dying in this new way, the immune system reacted strongly and wiped out the leukemia in lab models.
Dr. Philippe Bousso, the senior author of the study, explained that the triple therapy “forces cancer cells to die in a way that activates the immune system.”
The team used a high-tech imaging method that allowed them to watch immune cells interact with tumor cells in real time. This gave them a clear picture of how the immune response unfolded after necroptosis was triggered.
The results were published in the journal Science Advances. According to Bousso, this strategy could lead to a new type of immunotherapy for treating lymphomas and leukemias that don’t respond well to current treatments.
By changing how the cancer cells die, the researchers were able to turn the tumors into signals for the immune system—essentially teaching the body to recognize and fight the cancer more effectively.
This research is still in the early stages, but it provides an exciting look at how cancer treatment could evolve. If future studies confirm the results in humans, this triple-drug approach may give doctors a new way to treat certain blood cancers, with fewer relapses and better outcomes.
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The study is published in Science Advances.
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