Scientists claim they have found a way of beefing up the body's own immune system to attack cancer.
The role of these cells is to initiate a massive immune system assault on those tumours or viruses when they appear in the body. And the researchers found that their modified dendritic cells responded far more powerfully to the cells or viruses for which they had been primed. Professor Ronald Levy, head of the cancer divison at Stanford University in the US, said that the bird virus could not replicate in human cells, so was likely to be safe to use in humans. A safety trial for a treatment for cancer based on the immunotherapy might start within a year. However, there are other safety worries connected with immunotherapies, whether for cancer or other illnesses.