New Approach in Immunotherapy, Targets a Specific Protein that Protects Tumors

Modernization, alongside the advancement of technology, causes medical advancement in developing treatments for different diseases with science. Diseases that long before were dead-end for some of the patients' lives, which was knocked down by medicine advancements. For some part, cancer is depicted as the last chapter of someone diagnosed with the disease but extending their life was made possible.

Numerous treatments are now available for cancer patients that can help them live better and quality lives. Brigham and Women's Hospital's release, which was also published in Medical Xpress Immunotherapies, has changed the game for cancer treatment by stimulating the immune response to attack certain tumors (malignant) that cause the condition. Thus, the immune cells are programmed to attack the harmful tumors and improve the patient's health. However, the National Cancer Institute mentioned that some of the tumors could find ways to hide from the immune response that hunts them. These tumors are called cold tumors. 

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What are cold tumors?

As the name suggests, cold tumors are cold from the medication like immunotherapies. When the immune cells try to patrol to kill them, they hide so that they won't be killed. According to the National Cancer Institute, these tumors have proteins located on their surface that act as a shield or make them invisible from immune cells' sight. 

Methods and result of the study

Since the knowledge about the protein on the cell's surface is not new to the researchers, the release notes that the researchers from the Brigham and Women's Hospital focused on the said protein. Also called SerpinB9 (Sb9) was noted by the researchers in the release that it can lead to a new approach in immunotherapy. 

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The releases added that mouse models were used by the researchers in constraining Sb9 with smaller tumor growth by waning the tumor's defenses stimulating cell death in the tumors themselves. The author of the study, and Division of Renal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital's Reza Abdi, MD, stresses in the release that their team demonstrates proof of the concept through a small molecule that is designed to eradicate cancer utilizing its lytic enzyme machinery. Medical Xpress furthers that the researchers noted that checkpoint inhibitors have promising effects; however, they added that making antibodies is challenging to accomplish and may cause toxic effects to patients, in the long run, compared to their new approach, complicated to develop and may pose more efficacy. 

According to Medical Xpress, the researchers used CRISPR-Cas9 technology in placing the molecule in Sb9. Abdi stated in the release that tumors with less Sb9 develop slower. He added that placing knocked out protein cells in tumors with fewer Sb9 significantly diminishes tumor size. Abdi added in the release that more studies are needed to optimize and verify the results of the study. 

This new approach in immunotherapy is another medical breakthrough, making us hope that a medication that completely eradicates cancer cells will be available soon enough. 

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