… early-stage tumors that never progress to advanced disease.
Once the antibody for CFH was identified, Patz and colleagues sought to explore how this immune response could be optimized as a cancer therapy. Critical to that effort was finding a way to produce antibodies that recognized the exact same part of CFH as the autoantibodies made by the early-stage cancer patients, thus assuring that the antibodies would have a particular affinity for cancer cells.
The researchers then tested the antibodies in multiple cancer cell lines, including lung, gastric and breast cancers in lab dishes, and in tumors in living mice. They found that the antibodies caused tumor cell death without any obvious side effects. The antibodies also appeared to trigger an additional adaptive immune response when the damaged cells sent signals to recruit an army of lymphocytes, creating a potentially more lethal systemic attack.
“This could represent a whole new approach to treating cancer, and it’s exciting because the antibody selectively kills tumor cells, so we don’t have significant side effects to achieve tumor control,” Patz said.
Researchers Develop Human Antibody That Kills Cancer Cells, Leaves Healthy Cells Unharmed was originally published on blackdoctor.org
