Cambridge researchers have discovered how T cells – an important component of our immune system – are able to keep on killing as they hunt down and kill cancer cells, repeatedly reloading their toxic weapons.
Nanobots that patrol our bodies, killer immune cells hunting and destroying cancer cells, biological scissors that cut out defective genes: these are just some of technologies that Cambridge researchers are developing which are set to revolutionise medicine in the future.
Our immune systems are meant to keep us healthy, but sometimes they turn their fire on us, with devastating results. Immunotherapies can help defend against this ‘friendly fire’ – and even weaponise it in our defence.
A dramatic video has captured the behaviour of cytotoxic T cells – the body’s ‘serial killers’ – as they hunt down and eliminate cancer cells before moving on to their next target.
New treatment could reduce insulin injections to just once or twice a week.
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