Credit: NIAID
Scientists at the University of Southampton s Centre for Cancer Immunology have gained new insight into how the immune system can be better used to find and kill cancer cells.
Working with BioInvent International, a team led by Professor Mark Cragg and Dr Jane Willoughby from the Antibody and Vaccine Group, based at the Centre, have shown that antibodies, designed to target the molecule OX40, give a more active immune response when they bind closer to the cell membrane and can be modified to attack cancer in different ways.
OX40 is a co-receptor that helps to stimulate the production of helper and killer T-cells during an immune response. One of the ways cancer avoids detection is by suppressing immune responses to stop functional tumour specific T-cells from being produced.
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A study by the University of Southampton gives a new perspective on why our planet has managed to stay habitable for billions of years - concluding it is almost certainly due, at least in part, to luck. The research suggests this may lengthen the odds of finding life on so-called twin-Earths in the Universe.
The research, published in the Nature journal
Communications Earth & Environment, involved conducting the first ever simulation of climate evolution on thousands of randomly generated planets.
Geological data demonstrate that Earth s climate has remained continuously habitable for more than three billion years. However, it has been precariously balanced, with the potential to rapidly deteriorate to deep-frozen or intolerably hot conditions causing planet-wide sterility.