White Blood Cells From Cancer-resistant Mice Cure Cancers In Ordinary Mice

[phantom power]

This seems like it might be important.

White blood cells from a strain of cancer-resistant mice cured advanced cancers in ordinary laboratory mice, researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine reported today.

"Even highly aggressive forms of malignancy with extremely large tumors were eradicated," Zheng Cui, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues reported in this week's on-line edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The transplanted white blood cells not only killed existing cancers, but also protected normal mice from what should have been lethal doses of highly aggressive new cancers.

(...)

Cui and Willingham said the research produced many other surprises. For one thing, if a virulent tumor was planted in a normal mouse's back, and the transplanted white blood cells were injected into the mouse's abdomen, the cells still found the cancer without harming normal cells. The kind of cancer didn't seem to matter.

A single injection of cancer-resistant macrophages offered long-term protection for the entire lifespan of the recipient mouse, something very unexpected, they said.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060509094714.htm

[Avalux]

1. Macrophages rock.

They're my very favorite white blood cell. This data looks promising; the trick is to make it work in humans too. Looking forward to more studies.