Light skin cells to fight disease
2006/10/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria
Dermatology researchers are developing a new technique to improve vaccines. This new technique increases the ability of dendritic skin cells to activate immune system T cells.
The new technique is expected to be useful for fighting diseases such as melanomas, tumors, AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, although it is still experimenting with mice. What researchers have done has been to find an appropriate vector, which tells dendritic cells which cells or organisms should attack. In the case of melanoma, this vector is a lentivirus that has included in the lentivirus a package of RNA representative of melanoma. After the introduction of the virus in the skin, treated mice created for 4 months antimelanoma T cells. In contrast, control mice created these T cells for only one month.
