Cancer Research on animals looks promising

In the last few months, researchers at Pitt’s School of Medicine reached a breakthrough in… In the last few months, researchers at Pitt’s School of Medicine reached a breakthrough in cancer research. They’ve found a new method of treating certain types of cancer in animals.

By using immunotherapy (medical treatment that involves manipulating the immune system) the treatment helps fight two kinds of cancer: melanoma and cutaneous lymphoma.

The project – headed by Louis D. Falo, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chairman of the department of dermatology at the Pitt’s School of Medicine – is a step toward the science needed to finally cure cancer.

Falo, who has been working with his team on the project for only a few months, said that the results have been “surprisingly successful.”

He added that it will take a few years to fully figure out the effects that the treatment might have. Although, he noted, a very promising point is that there are “no side-effects yet.”

The process is controlled by dendritic cells, which produce antibodies in order to help fight disease. The cells alert the immune system and present it with a problem.

It works kind of like a vaccine, introducing a small amount of a dangerous antibody so the body can eliminate it and be ready to fight the actual disease.

“In cancer, dendritic cells don’t recognize a tumor,” Falo said.

What the dendritic cells do is trick the fighting antigen cells. The researchers take parts of bacteria or virus cells that could be used in a vaccination and use them to inflame the antigen cells.

Falo said they “take pieces harmless to us, so it won’t hurt us.”

It’s a duel process. While the dendritic cells are provoking the antigen cells they are also feeding the tumor cells. The result is that the tumor cells are then attacked.

As Falo puts it, the dendritic cells are “the conductor of the whole orchestra.”

The advantage to this process is that it is safer than other treatments.

“Immunotherapies are more natural, not like chemotherapy,” Falo said.

Because of this the body is much more likely to coalesce with the reaction, rather than chemically change or mutate.

“Your body is very good at recognizing bacteria and viruses,” he said.