Fusion Power

Modern medicine so often uses treatments like drugs and surgery to great effect that we can forget our bodies have expansive defence mechanisms of their own. And when those usual external approaches don’t work, such as in patients with glioblastoma – a potentially lethal and very hard-to-treat brain tumour (pictured) – researchers consider ways of bolstering the body’s in-built systems. A new study has created a fusion of two immune system components, antibodies – the soldiers that tackle unwanted invaders – and cytokines, messenger molecules that typically ring the alarm. Combining these two into a powerful partnership proved more effective than either alone. The team-up targeted a telltale marker (highlighted here in green) of glioblastoma and in experiments with mice caused tumours to slow their growth or even shrink back. If the same applies in humans, this could one day help patients overcome their tumours with tools they had inside them all along.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image from work by T. Weiss & E. Puca, et al, Dept of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich)
• and Dept of Neurology and Brain Tumor Center, University Hospital Zurich and University of Zurich, Switzerland
• Image copyright held by and reproduced with permission from the AAAS
• Published in Science Translational Medicine, October 2020