Tiny particles turn a tumor’s own immune guards against it
Researchers at Adelaide University have developed nanoparticles that reprogram tumor-associated macrophages to stop protecting cancer cells. By targeting these cells, the treatment helps attract killer T cells to attack breast tumors in mice.
Why it matters
This breakthrough offers a potential new pathway for immunotherapy, addressing the common issue where solid tumors create an environment that suppresses the body's natural immune response.
Nanoparticles that reprogram a tumor's own macrophages drew killer T cells into mouse breast tumors, a new route for cancer immunotherapy.
The immune system may be capable of attacking a tumor. Yet some of the most common cells inside a solid tumor are immune cells that don’t attack the cancer at all.
They protect it, holding back the killer cells that could.
Researchers at Adelaide University have now built fat-based particles that find those protective cells inside a tumor and reprogram them.
In mice with breast cancer, the particles cut the share of tumor-protecting cells by more than half, attracted killer T cells , and slowed tumor growth.
The tumors didn’t disappear. What changed is that the cancer’s own guards started working against it.
Immunotherapy, which includes checkpoint drugs and lab-grown immune cells , works well for some cancers and poorly for many solid tumors.
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