During the week of April 4 through 10, I went to San Diego to visit my son Blake, who just returned from deployment in the Persian Gulf. Really, in the gulf because he was on a ship. No landlubber is Blake who got his sea legs for real over the last six months. It was a great welcome home party made even better when my younger son, Logan, who is currently stationed in Germany, also came stateside to see Blake. What a great homecoming and reunion it was! Alas, all good things come to an end. We all returned to our respective homes and work. "WORK!", in my best Maynard G. Krebs voice. (Maynard was the affable but labor-phobic beatnik from the Dobie Gillis show.)
During my flights to and from San Diego I (twice) read an article in Scientific American about advances in immunotherapy treatments against blood-borne cancers. And thanks to the OpenStax Biology text that I've been reading, most of it made sense to me! Yes, my nerdiness is paying off in a strange, perverted way. Who but a nerd, and, of course, a college student, would download a 1,500 page biology text and read it? I love to learn!
Immunotherapy uses the body's own immune system to help identify and destroy malignant cells. Many malignant cells don't look 'foreign' to our immune system so don't trigger an immune response. This cellular trickery is common to most cancers and, in my case, allows those bad actors to continue to grow and crowd out other good stuff in my blood, like red blood cells, and neutrophils, which carry oxygen all over my body and fight off infections, respectively.
The most intriguing treatment approach described was the one where three types of cells were extracted from your body: healthy white blood cells, malignant white blood cells and healthy dendritic cells. Then the molecular structure of receptors on the healthy and malignant blood cells is compared to see how they differ. Malignant cells usually express at least one incorrect receptor protein on the cell surface which is what causes problems in the first place. (Remember my earlier post about apoptosis, natural cell death?) Once these differences are identified, the healthy dendritic cells can be 'programmed' to seek out the malignant cells that express the incorrect receptor, identify them to the immune system and thereby cause the immune system to attack those malignant cells. I'm glad medical researchers have some tricks of their own.
Unfortunately, without a subscription to Scientific American, we are unable to see this article online. Bummer! Otherwise, I would post a link to it under my Lymph Links section. The article is in Scientific American, Volume 314, Issue 4. I'm very pleased to see these kinds of advances in cancer treatments, especially since the side effects of them are usually far less consequential than chemotherapy or radiation.
About Me
- Wayne Turner
- I was born, raised and went to school in eastern NC. Too immature at 17 to comprehend the seriousness of university life, I dropped out after two years and joined the Air Force. I spent two years of my four year military career in Germany, which I enjoyed immensely. I completed my Bachelor's Degree at Guilford College in 1985. My first career was in the computer field where I did everything short of design one. I've spent the last 30 years in the environmental field working for local governments. In December 2017 I retired from full time work. My overdeveloped sense of fairness and justice lands me on the liberal side in my political views. I think government plays a large role in social responsibility in a civilized state. I believe in the innate compassion and goodness in everyone despite the daily news reports to the contrary. My genetic predisposition for generosity in nearly all things is sometimes a source of future angst. I've been a musician and still have a deep love of music. I am naturally curious about all things especially metaphysics and science.
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