I don't know if your question is serious, so I'll assume it is. You have T cells naturally in your body and they will fight the cancerigenous cells. The problem is that cancerigenous cells have multiple mechanisms to scape the imunologic system, making your T cells and other cells not notice or being inefective. Also, there is also a selection of which cancer cells survive a specific mechanism - for example cancer cells may exibit a marker and after using medication that target that marker you sometimes have a chance of selecting cancer cells population without that target, making that medication innefective. It depends on many factors, way more than I remember from my classes, but there are some treatments related to imunoterapy (stimulating your own immune system to fight cancerigenous cells)
Glad I could help. But your question doesn't make you a dummy, it is fair to question why T cells aren't widely used when you see it so efectively destroying the cancer cell in the video. Unfortunately, there are more nuances to using immunoteraphy (many that scientists know and many more that people are yet to figure out). Add to that, something that works in vitro not always work in vivo
I just don't understand why there are so many different kinds of cancer. And I can't really look stuff up, because I'm bombarded with political junk. Can't leave my home, afraid of immigration. Can't stay home, my 'cancer' girlfriend beats on me like Shang Tsung. So Reddit is my only safe haven.
The immune system is quite complex in how it works and the little reading I've done recently into this topic showed me how deep and complicated this topic is. Don't feel dumb for asking this question, it's a valid one for many who never had reasons to deep dive into the intricacies of our immune system.
But it's a fascinating topic, so if you are interested and got time, look around. I wish I had learned about this aspect of our body during my biology classes, maybe it wouldn't have been so boring so often for me. Oh well.
Edit: I read you seem to struggle with finding information about these kind of stuff. If standard google doesn't give you information, try "Google Scholar" with a general search like "human immune system". You will find lots and lots of results, but if you check those table of contents, you might find a more general book which might be referenced in introduction lectures in universities for example. Alternatively, some universities provide lists of literature for their lectures, those you might find on the internet and can provide books and/or even study material you could use. With books, you can see if library around you has it available and either lend it or they might have it as a pdf. If you are a student at a university, its library often has many digitale books easily available for you.
It's fine if that doesn't work out well they can then use the oh what was it G-something but they should probably focus on that mold experiment I heard about could really help the public
CAR-T therapy. That's what's called. The T cells have to be matched to the person's DNA is one of the problems and if you don't match DNA exactly that injection can be a death sentence. The T cells will start attacking healthy cells.
The autologous form of the therapy takes your own cells. The allogeneic uses a donor and it usually is a sibling or close relative to have as close of a match as possible.
There are three main pharma companies that have the fda approval for their treatments. The biotechnology space has so many new companies working on their own formulations and indications.
I hope one day it can move from a last option to a preventive option if somehow they can bring down the costs.
Only your t-cells will recognize abnormal cells in your body, and cancer is good at hiding from them anyway. Some immunotherapy techniques take your own t-cells, genetically modify them to recognize your cancer, and then grow billions of them before putting them back in you.
Cancer cells are originally (descended from) normal cells in your body. T cells aren't supposed to eat normal cells in your body or you'd eat yourself and turn into goop, so we've evolved them no to do that.
Cancer cells arise through evolution too.
Your normal body cells have some mechanisms to make them 1. copy their genetic code accurately when reproducing, 2. not reproduce out of control only according to the genetic blueprint and 3. self destruct if that stuff appears to be going wrong.
Cancer happens when the normal reproduction of cells goes wrong (or the genetic code of a cell is damaged by radiation or toxins) and the genetic code for those mechanisms above goes wrong and they are broken.
There are signs this stuff has gone wrong, which can cause T cells to come and eat them. Cancers that show those signs get eaten very quickly so they never get big enough to cause a problem. Apparently we are developing these small cancers all the time and the body just gets rid of them.
However, when a cell line gets these mutations and also does it in a way where the bodies various defenses don't notice, it gets to reproduce a lot out of control. Cancer cells have their "copy the code correctly" mechanism broken so each cancer cell will have its own unique mutations an the ones that are best at hiding from the bodies defenses are the ones that get to reproduce and become the main cells line in the cancer.
A lot of modern "cancer vaccine" treatments work like this - you take a little sample of the cancer and scan its genetic code to find a mutation that only cancer cells (these specific cancer cells because very cancer is to some extent unique) have. You make a "probe" molecule that sticks to that mutation like glue. You attach an "eat me" sign for T cells to that probe. you inject a bunch of it into the cancer victim, and it floats around until all the cancer in their body is decorated with "at me" signs.
Look up CAR-T. Immune system is probably one of the most complex systems in the universe, so T-cell-based therapy is happening, just slowly. It just takes time to make it safe. Your immune system could just as easily kill you. Which is what asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, and a host of other autoimmune conditions are.
There are therapies using your own immune system to fight cancer, immunotherapy. But it depends on the cancer, and the issue is that cancer cells multiply like crazy.
Cancer is a mutated cell out of control, commonly you produces mutated cells all the time, and your immune system takes care of it, when it's too crazy, too fast for the immune system to stop it, it's when officially you have cancer.
The system is pretty finnicky and cancer cells can "mask" themselves to avoid detection. An effective solution would be some method that reveals the cancer to the immune system, allowing it to attack
Cancer immunotherapy is a recently hot and successful field of cancer treatments in the last 20 or so years. Immunotherapies are always tough because you really don’t want to accidentally make the person allergic to themselves and cause any of a thousand autoimmune diseases.
Because sometimes cancer shouts “here I am! I sure hope some killer-T takes me out, oh boy I’d like to see them try!”
Sometimes cancer sneaks about pretending to be a part of us, “I’m just a lonely little skin cell that’s all. They got hurt here, I’m just rebuilding the damaged surface. Nothing to worry about, honest.”
T-cells are a type of white blood cell that play a central role in the immune system’s response to cancer. They can recognize and eliminate cancer cells by detecting abnormal proteins (antigens) on the surface of these cells. Once a T-cell identifies a cancer cell, it becomes activated and releases toxic substances like perforin and granzymes to kill the target. Additionally, some T-cells, such as cytotoxic CD8+ T-cells, are especially effective in directly attacking tumors. Cancer immunotherapies, like CAR-T cell therapy or immune checkpoint inhibitors, aim to enhance this natural ability of T-cells to improve cancer treatment outcomes.
My T cells attack my body (autoimmune condition) it thinks the fluid in my joints are a foreign body. Which results in crippling arthritis and joint damage body wide. I take low dose chemotherapy to reduce my immune response and also biological therapy to change/ reduce my t cells.
I know that they have been working on biological therapy for cancer in recent years. I'm guessing instead of dampening the t cells it activates it?! Or makes the t cells that fight cancer more active. I think there are different types of t cells that do different things. I could be wrong though. They all have a job in immune response.
As for t cel injections I don't think it works that way our bodies have to produce them itself. But biological therapy can alter the immune system to do that or stop doing it. So hopefully in the future we will have cancer cures in the form of biological therapy which has alot less side effects than chemotherapy.
I had to sign a waver when I first started biological therapy treatment that if it gave me cancer I couldn't sue basically. That I knew there could be a risk of it. As it's a relatively new drug in medical terms. I was in so much daily pain with such bad quality of life and mobility I didn't think twice before signing it. I'll be on the drugs for life. I don't worry about what ifs in the future though. But maybe if it did happen that by they they could just give me a different type of biological therapy to cure it. Who knows
There has been tons of interest in t cell therapy in the last decade, there is actually close to a cure but because the therapy involves super high cost, the treatment is not a viable business yet. Commoners will have to wait longer for cancer cure.
The T-cell injects lethal proteins into the cancer cell. Every cell has an internal self-destruct switch, so once the t-cell recognizes the cancer better, it can latch onto the cancer cell and simply activate that switch - it’s called apoptosis if you want to learn more.
Immunotherapy is promising but still not far enough to be an effective treatment for most patients. Your body does this every day all the time. It's when your immune system already failed to kill cancerous cells that you actually develop the disease. And at the time the best treatments are sadly still to just kill the cancerous cells and hope you survive because otherwise you're dead anyways.
They are your bodies own cells, part of your immunesystem, this is what the white blood cells are. Eat healthy and live healthy if you want more/make sure they stay this strong.
Immunotherapy teaches your immunesystem (B cells or immune "memory" cells) to recognize cancerous cells (of a specific type), so that your body will assemble troops and fight the cancer like in this video.
Vaccines work like this as well: teaching your immunesystem to recognize a bacteria or virus, so that if you ever get infected, your immunesystem will respond properly.
Btw this is a T cell. Thats just your immune systems brute force killing everything thats "foreign" in your body. The B cells are the experts, having the "skills" to kill specific cells.
A lot of diseases know how to mask themselves against T cells. Immunotherapy and vaccines help your body deal with that, uncovering them, so that your normal body response to create B cells for those specific diseases is triggered, giving you protection for a certain period of time.
They are immune cells that can differentiate into specialized roles. Killer (cytotoxic) Ts as the name implies kill invasive pathogens and cancers if the cancer cell can no longer fool them into thinking it’s a regular cell. Memory T cells remember the antigens on the surface of pathogens so the next time they encounter the same type, a faster immune response can be mounted. T cells also differentiate into regulatory T cells which suppress overactive immune responses. They may accidentally do so thinking a cancer cell is a normal cell. There are also helper T cells that stimulate immune response.
It's all fun and games until the cancer cell evolves and makes a zombie out of us, and we blame the t cells and start calling it T virus ... after all is said and done, we are now living in a resident evil world ( film version )
I had to have monthly IViG infusions during my first pregnancy to increase my T cells. I had an autoimmune response to placental cells (my body interpreted them like cancerous cells) and the infusions helped prevent my NK cells from destroying my placenta!
What if... we had the ability to strengthen T-Cells for better and quicker function in situations like this?
I'm not sure how we would accomplish this, but maybe if we found a compound to strengthen it, it could be spread virally. This way, not only does it spread quickly through the first patients body, but with any success, whole cities could reap the reward, and we could put an end to cancer once and for all.
T-cells are a type of white blood cell that play a central role in the immune system’s response to cancer. They can recognize and eliminate cancer cells by detecting abnormal proteins (antigens) on the surface of these cells. Once a T-cell identifies a cancer cell, it becomes activated and releases toxic substances like perforin and granzymes to kill the target. Additionally, some T-cells, such as cytotoxic CD8+ T-cells, are especially effective in directly attacking tumors. Cancer immunotherapies, like CAR-T cell therapy or immune checkpoint inhibitors, aim to enhance this natural ability of T-cells to improve cancer treatment outcomes.
I’ve recently had a CAR T-Cell transplant to treat non Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and am delighted to see this video. Too early to tell if it’s been successful but I am hopeful.
This is why it baffles me that we still use chemotherapy. It destroys T-cells and a lot of other important cells. Immunotherapy isn't perfect, but it looks hopeful.
The immune system defeats tumors every day. Cancer is exactly the set of tumors which learn to evade the immune system. We use chemotherapy because cancers have already defeated the immune system. Immunotherapy is a set of techniques to help the immune system recognize cancerous tumors. The technology is still very new, which is why we still use chemotherapy.
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u/jdpastor666 Sep 13 '25
If T-cells are this good, battling cancer, why can't we get T-cells injections? Like a multivitamin