2023-11-10 00:47:19
MONTREAL — Work carried out in Montreal might soon make cancerous tumors even more vulnerable to attack by the immune system.
Doctor André Veillette and his colleagues at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute have developed a brand new antibody that allows certain cells of the immune system to identify and destroy cancer cells.
“We found a kind of alarm clock,” explained Doctor Veillette. It binds to cancer cells, it exposes or unmasks a molecule on the surface of the cancer cells, and boom, it wakes up the immune system.
This discovery builds on the work of other researchers, including Nobel Prize winners, who have made immunotherapy the most revolutionary and promising development to occur in the field of the fight once morest cancer over the last fifteen or twenty years.
That being said, recalled Dr. Veillette, not all cancers and all patients can be treated by immunotherapy at the moment, hence the need to continue work to identify new ways of inciting the system. immune system to attack and destroy cancer cells.
It is in this context that Dr. Veillette and his team became interested in macrophages, cells of the immune system which are not only capable of “eating” problem cells, said the researcher, but also of calling on other immune cells as reinforcements.
“It is a component of the immune system that is very important and which is underutilized in the treatment of all kinds of diseases, including in the treatment of cancer,” said Dr. Veillette.
IRCM researchers have eventually developed a new antibody, Z10, which unmasks a molecule on the surface of cancerous tumors, thereby making them more recognizable by macrophages.
In tests on mice, the Z10 antibody used in combination with checkpoint inhibitors (drugs that allow the immune system to attack cancer) caused tumors to almost completely disappear. The two substances must, however, be used together to achieve the desired effect; there is no effect when used individually.
“It’s great to advance knowledge, but if at the same time you can develop new tools to treat people who are really sick with real diseases, that’s where it becomes exciting,” said Dr. Veillette. .
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