Treating tumors with engineered dendritic cells

Cerebral tumor (glioma) of a mouse - 2023 EPFL / Michele De Palma - CC-BY-SA 4. Cancer biologists at EPFL, UNIGE, and the German Cancer Research Center (Heidelberg) have developed a novel immunotherapy that does not require knowledge of a tumor's antigenic makeup. The new results may pave the way to first-in-kind clinical applications. Dendritic cells (DCs) work at the forefront of the immune system. They can actively capture antigens, such as fragments of viruses, bacteria, and mutated cancer cells, and direct other immune cells against those invading agents. This process, called antigen presentation, often results in the activation of a second type of immune cell, the CD8 T cell, which can eliminate infected or abnormally mutated cells. Thus, DCs play an important role in orchestrating immunity against pathogens and cancer cells.