Cancer cells can treat tumors

Cancer cells can treat tumors.
New dig into suggests that many cancer cells are equipped with a gracious of suicide pill: a protein on their surfaces that gives them the genius to send an "eat me" wink to immune cells. The challenge now, the researchers say, is to plate out how to coax cancer cells into emitting the exceptional rather than a dangerous "don't eat me" signal laxative. A office published online Dec 22 2010 in Science Translational Medicine reports that the cells cast out the enticing "eat me" wave by displaying the protein calreticulin.

But another molecule, called CD47, allows most cancer cells to keep off rubbing out by sending the opposite signal: "Don't eat me". In earlier research, Stanford University School of Medicine scientists found that an antibody that blocks CD47 - turning off the unique - could balm tussle cancer, but mysteries remained pharmacy. "Many orthodox cells in the body have CD47, and yet those cells are not distressed by the anti-CD47 antibody," Mark Chao, a Stanford graduate schoolgirl and the study's lead author, said in a university news release.