COULD the immune system be reprogrammed to fight cancer? It seems that macrophages – immune cells roped in by tumours to help them grow – can be turned into cancer killers.
Macrophages normally clean up dead and dying cells after an infection. In theory, macrophages should gobble up cancer cells too. “They should [swallow] dead and dying cancer cells, and stimulate an immune response against the tumour,” says David Ian Stott of the University of Glasgow, UK.
Instead, cancer cells release chemical signals that persuade macrophages to turn traitor, releasing growth factors that feed the tumour rather than destroy it. “Macrophages…
