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Malignant cells can help destroy cancer
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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At the Scripps Research Institute, a team of scientists has found a way to treat leukemia. After several years of work, scientists have found a way to make cancer cells destroy their own kind.
This discovery could become a real breakthrough in medicine and help in the treatment of not only leukemia, but also other cancers.
The team initially looked for antibodies that could trigger growth receptors on bone marrow cells that were in an immature state.
As scientists suggest, such a mechanism would help transform immature bone marrow cells into blood cells. But the specialists also noted that some antibodies can have an unpredictable effect on bone marrow cells and turn them into any type of cells, for example, nerve cells.
The discovery prompted scientists to consider whether it was possible to use this method to turn atypical cells into normal ones. As a result, 20 antibodies that activate receptors on leukemia cells were tested, and only one of them was found to be effective.
The antibodies produced an exceptional effect on human leukemia cells – they transformed them into key cells of the immune system; with increasing exposure time, the key cells became NK cells, which are distinguished by their rapid response to various pathological processes in the body. Such cells effectively resist not only viruses and bacteria, but also cancer cells.
The results of the experiments were quite impressive: a small number of NK cells destroyed about 15% of the leukemia cells that surrounded them in one day.
The authors of the research project, Dr. Lita Annenberg and Dr. Richard Lerner, noted that the results of their work will become a new stage in the treatment of various cancers.
Cancer is the most terrible and dangerous disease of mankind, a huge number of people die from different types of oncology every year, and scientists around the world are trying to find a way to treat cancer. Thus, in one of the largest private medical centers in the world, the Mayo Clinic, a team of specialists has developed a way to return atypical cells to a normal state. The new method turned out to be effective and helped in the treatment of some types of cancer.
The head of the scientific project, Panagiotis Anastasiadisson, noted that his group was able to stop the growth of the tumor and return the atypical cells to their normal state.
In their work, the scientists used the Plekha7 gene, which produces a protein that affects abnormal cells. This protein prevents cells from dividing and developing into a malignant tumor. The researchers tested the new method on several aggressive forms of cancer tumors, and the results were positive. Anastasiadison explained that she was able to understand the principle of cancer development and find the "key" to the neoplasms.
Scientists are currently at the final stage; in the future, the new method is planned to be used to treat cancerous tumors of the breast, bladder and lungs.
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