Discovery of an immune cell that destroys 'most cancers'
21 January 2020
New research from Cardiff University has suggested a newly-discovered part of our immune system could help treat a number of cancers, including ovarian cancer.
Published in the paper Nature Immunology and reported by the BBC, the early findings have been marked as having “enormous potential”.
We know our immune system can help us fight a cold but with help, it can also help us fight cancer.
T-cell therapy is a cancer treatment where immune cells are extracted from a patient’s blood, altered to seek and destroy cancer cells then returned to the patient so their immune system can tackle cancer on its own.
This differs from chemotherapy where treatment target cancer cells to destroy them, but can damage healthy cells by accident too.
At our HMMT conference in September last year, we asked Dr Kristin Anderson to explain T-cell therapy:
At Ovarian Cancer Action we are invested in finding kinder and more effective treatments to treat ovarian cancer and believe immunotherapy could be the answer.
Last year Professor Ahmed Ahmed won our immunotherapy challenge for his project to develop an ovarian cancer vaccine. You can read more about his work here.
Click here for more information on immunotherapy and how it might be harnessed for ovarian cancer.