ISRAELI RESEARCHERS DISCOVER HOW TO BOOST NATURAL CANCER-KILING CELLS

The future of cancer treatments rests also on the shoulders of Natural Killer cells, according to a recent study conducted by Israeli Professor Angel Porgador, of the Shraga Segal Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Genetics, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University, and the National Institute of Biotechnology in the Negev (NIBN).

The study, published in the July issue of Cancer Immunology Research, described Porgador’s discovery: a protein in the cell membrane of cancers that inhibits the body’s immune system, allowing the cancer to proliferate undisturbed. This membrane protein protects the cancers by disabling Natural Killer cells (NKs), the white blood cells that are responsible for attacking tumors and viruses. While such proteins were known to exist in the nucleus and cytoplasms, their detection in the cell membranes is novel.

According to Porgador, these membrane proteins could provide a target for new treatments.

“This is the real proof that a very important protein in the cancer life, or in the proliferating cell life, has a version that goes in the membrane,” he said, “and this protein could be a target.”

Using mouse cells, Porgador and his team were able to develop an antidote to the inhibiting proteins in the form of an antibody. Now, they are in the process of turning the mouse antibody into one that will work on human cells. Their goal? A fully FDA-approved form of cancer therapy that will be administered intravenously or intramuscularly to patients.


https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Israeli-researchers-discover-how-to-disable-Natural-Killer-cancer-cells-597159

The answer to human illness lies within the human body.