First video of immune cells eating live skin cancer in real time |
For the past 15 years or so, a class of drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitors have been used to treat melanoma – the most dangerous kind of skin cancer.
For many patients, they produce remarkable results. For others, they do nothing.
We still don’t really know why. But in new research published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, we observed immune cells called macrophages attacking melanoma cells in real time – which may offer clues about how we can make those therapies work for all patients, not just some.
Tumours, hot and cold
One of us (Yuki) treated patients with melanoma in Japan as a dermatologist. The other (Tri Phan) runs a lab at the Garvan Institute in Sydney, where his team specialises in observing the cells of the immune system in real time.
When Yuki wanted to understand why immune checkpoint inhibitors were failing for many patients, she joined Tri Phan’s lab to continue her research.
The treatment fails in what oncologists call “cold” tumours, where the cancer’s environment actively prevents a kind of immune cell called a T cell attacking it. One of our lab’s aims is trying to work out how........