White blood cells known as \u201cnatural killer cells\u201d\u2014named for their ability to attack disease without requiring activation by the immune system\u2014could play a vital role in battling cancer, according to new research by Lisette de Pillis, Norman F. Sprague Professor of Life Sciences at Harvey Mudd College.<\/p>\n
The so-called NK cells might be effective in the development of oncolytic virus therapies, a treatment engineered to selectively target, infect and kill cancer cells, de Pillis writes in the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology<\/em> (May 2021). She collaborated on the paper, \u201cNatural Killer Cells Recruitment in Oncolytic Virotherapy: A Mathematical Model,\u201d with researchers from the National University of Lesotho, the University of Pretoria and The College of Saint Rose.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a very promising therapeutic strategy,\u201d de Pillis says, \u201cbut there is still much to learn, including how these virus particles interact with other components of the immune system and what effects that may have on treatment efficacy.\u201d<\/p>\n NK cells are thought to account for between 5 percent to 20 percent of all lymphocytes \u2013 or white blood cells \u2013 in the human body. They have a faster immune reaction than other white cells, making them critical \u201cfirst responders\u201d when a cancer or infection is emerging, de Pillis notes. Further, NK cells are known to detect and eliminate infected or mutated cells that might be overlooked by other parts of the immune system.<\/p>\n The aim of the study was to consider, through mathematical modeling, the conditions under which oncolytic virotherapy might be administered successfully. (Oncolysis is the chemical or physical breakdown of cancer cells.) The researchers suggested the timing of NK cell treatment\u2014not too early and not too late\u2014is significant in administering virotheraphy.<\/p>\n The team acknowledged that there are more than 10 types of immune cells known to play a role in oncolytic virotherapy. They limited their study to NK cells because of their \u201cemerging role\u201d and because their behavior requires \u201cdeeper examination.\u201d<\/p>\n De Pillis began the research collaboration in 2015, when she was invited to present work on tumor-immune modeling at a workshop held at the American Institute for Mathematics.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are all motivated by knowing that our work is contributing to the ongoing effort to help cancer sufferers, and that is particularly rewarding,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n To date, the team\u2019s paper has been accessed more than 200 times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" White blood cells known as \u201cnatural killer cells\u201d\u2014named for their ability to attack disease without requiring activation by the immune […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":5406,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,14,22,26],"class_list":["post-9324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biology","category-faculty","category-mathematics","category-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}