Can We Train Our Bodies To Fight Cancer?

Over 1.5 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer every year and a little over half of those diagnosed with cancer will die as a result.

What Is Cancer and How Is Cancer Treated?

Cancer occurs when normal bodily cells begin to grow abnormally and disrupt the function of the healthy cells around them. Cancer is a particularly deadly because the human immune system does not recognize cancerous cells as dangerous.

Traditional cancer treatment involves radiation and chemotherapy, which can weaken a person’s body because both techniques involve destroying both cancerous cells and healthy cells. Because the human body has no natural immunal response to cancerous cells, people who have received cancer treatment are at a greater risk of the cancer reoccurring.

What Is Immunotherapy?

Cancer cells specialize in masking themselves as “normal cells” by coating themselves in “normal” cellular protein, which will confuse immune system cells into thinking that the cancerous cells are not dangerous. Doctors have developed a new technique, known as immunotherapy, which is designed to train the immune system to recognize and destroy these cancerous cells.

Cancer is a particularly deadly because the human immune system does not recognize cancerous cells as dangerous.

Scientists have engineered medications, such as Herceptin, that can create antibodies (proteins developed by the immune system to neutralize foreign pathogens) that will bind to cancerous cells and mark them as dangerous. Once the antibody binds to the cancer cells, the immune system begins to recognize the antibody and develop antibodies of its own to recognize and destroy the cancer cells.

Conclusion?

Though these new techniques have shown promise in their effectiveness, they are not quite a cure for cancer yet. Developing the medication is expensive and trials on the medication are still being run. The hope is that scientists can create a medication to help those afflicted with cancer be able to fight off the cancer for longer periods of time without the harmful affects of radiation and chemotherapy. Scientists even hope to make a vaccine that will allow our immune systems to build up immunity to cancerous cells even before they begin to develop.