Immunotherapy is a new and exciting way to treat cancer. It works by helping the body’s own immune system find and destroy cancer cells.
Now, scientists at the Institut Pasteur and Inserm in France have found a way to make this approach even more powerful, especially for certain blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma.
The study, recently published in Science Advances, showed that changing how cancer cells die can help alert the immune system. Normally, when cells die quietly through a process called apoptosis, the immune system doesn’t respond much.
But when cells die through another method called necroptosis, they send out strong signals that call in immune cells. This kind of cell death acts like an alarm system, telling the body to attack and clean up any leftover cancer.
The problem is that cancerous B cells, which are found in many blood cancers, usually don’t go through necroptosis on their own. They’re missing a key protein called MLKL, which is needed for this process to work.
To fix this, the researchers used a mix of three existing drugs. These medicines helped push the cancer cells into dying by necroptosis. In tests using a preclinical model (a lab-based method used before human trials), this triple treatment wiped out leukemia entirely.
The cancer cells died in a way that turned on a strong immune response, helping the body recognize and fight the disease.
Dr. Philippe Bousso, one of the lead researchers, said the goal of the therapy is to change how cancer cells die so the immune system will notice and react.
Using a special type of real-time imaging, the team watched immune cells respond to dying cancer cells. They could actually see that necroptosis was much better at grabbing the immune system’s attention compared to normal cell death.
This discovery may lead to a new kind of treatment for cancers that affect B cells. Instead of only trying to kill the cancer directly, doctors could also boost the body’s natural defenses by changing how cancer cells die. This could reduce the chance of the cancer coming back and make treatments more effective overall.
In short, by switching cancer cells into a “loud” form of death, scientists are finding new ways to help the immune system fight back. This approach has only been tested in lab models so far, but the results are very promising for future cancer therapies.
If you care about cancer, please read studies that a low-carb diet could increase overall cancer risk, and vitamin D supplements could strongly reduce cancer death.
For more information about health, please see recent studies about how drinking milk affects the risks of heart disease and cancer and results showing higher intake of dairy foods linked to higher prostate cancer risk.
The study is published in Science Advances.
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