Immune Checkpoint Therapy

To make your own whiteboard animation, please visit http://www.kramgallery.com/

在 2015, cancer will kill more than half a million people in the United States, according to the National Cancer Institute. Researchers around the world are hard at work developing treatments, but progress has been frustratingly slow.

One of the reasons cancer is so hard to tackle is that cancer cells are very similar to healthy cells. Just a few genetic changes can make the difference. And because they’re so similar, it is extremely difficult to create treatments that kill cancer cells while leaving normal cells unharmed.

It turns out, though, that our bodies have a natural system that specializes in distinguishing between healthy cells and dangerous invaders: our immune system. Researchers are working to harness this ability to treat cancer.

To understand such treatment approaches you first need to know a little bit about the human immune system. It is made up of many different types of cells, including natural killer cells, B cells, and T cells, to name just a few. These cells work together to patrol the body, keeping a lookout for intruders.

When they detect infectious agents, they sound the alarm, trap the dangerous invaders, and kill them so they can’t cause harm.

When the immune system works correctly, it attacks only invaders and leaves healthy cells unharmed.

Immune cells on patrol have both accelerators and brakes that can either speed up or slow down the cells’ abilities to combat intruders.

But what if there were a treatment that supercharged the immune system so that the brakes were removed from cells on patrol? That’s the idea behind immune checkpoint therapy.