A new discovery has given hope that melanoma cells can be monitored by memory T cells and effectively "put the cancer to sleep." The researchers say that the cancer cells would not be destroyed but they are simply patrolled by the T cells so as to restrict activity and reproduction.
In research published on Tuesday in the prestigious Nature journal, researchers from Melbourne’s Peter Doherty Institute and Telethon Kids Institute revealed they had discovered that the T cells had the ability to halt the growth of melanoma cells.
The cells were able to control the tumour in mice for the life of the animal, which was likely to equate to decades of protection in humans, said the paper’s lead author Simone Park.
The study was conducted through a new system whereby scientists monitored the melanoma cells and T cells under the microscope using flourescent markers. Through that, they were able to observe how T cells worked to keep the cancer cells in check.
The scientists were also able to remove the T cells from mice with dormant melanomas and found that once the cells were gone the tumours were then able to escape or grow, highlighting the importance of the immune cells in controlling the spread of cancer.
(Image credit: Chris Hopkins/The Sydney Morning Herald)
Comments (3)
His guitar was stolen and a similar guitar turned up in the window of a secondhand shop a few days later. He went into the shop asked to look at the guitar and played a few licks. Satisfied that it was his guitar he asked if he could look at it outside the dingy shop to check the finish. The shopkeeper agreed and our hero(?) ran from the shop doorway to a friend's waiting car and took off. The friend received a visit from the police later that same day, obviously the shopkeeper had clocked the registration.
As a result of this the police paid a call to the main protagonist of this tale. Turns out it wasn't the same guitar. The shopkeeper could produce not only proof that the instrument in question had been in his shop for some weeks, but that he had all the paperwork for it including tags (with serial number) and the original sales receipt (with serial number).
Our hero did not know the serial number of his instrument and indeed when he managed to find the original sales receipt as evidence for the police he discovered that it was different from the one he'd stolen. Luckily for him the police and the shopkeeper were pretty understanding and he got nothing more than a stern talking to and had to apologize in person to the shop keeper.
Also Cops are useless.