Beating Cancer At Its Own Game

“With all their wonderful properties, the immune system should work against cancer,” Topalian said, pointing to the many mechanisms that the immune system utilizes to attack foreign invaders, “but it’s stalled by cancer cells because [they] put up all walls against immune attack.” Cancer cells act like invaders that essentially prevent the immune system from attacking them by thwarting a particular checkpoint that T-cells use to determine when to attack a foreign body. T-cells will usually attack a group of cells if they recognize them as foreign—but in the case of many cancers, the tumor emits a molecule that turns the immune attack off, allowing the tumor to grow unchecked.

“If we could devise a drug that would reactivate the immune system in the proper way, this drug could become a common denominator in cancer therapy,” Topalian stated. Drugs can be used to target this particular checkpoint so that tumors cannot trick the immune system into allowing them to continue to grow. By blocking the T-cells from recognizing the tumor’s emitted molecule, the tumor will not pass the checkpoint, and the immune system’s natural T-cells will attack and repress the tumor’s growth. In this way, the immune system can be “reactivated” to fight against the tumor like it would against any other foreign invader, like an infection or virus.