The
New Scientist reports on another step forward for medical engineering: "a 'bioscaffold' made of
collagen impregnated with
stromal and
dendritic cells extracted from the
thymus of newborn mice [was] then implanted into mice with healthy
immune systems that had been vaccinated against a harmless
antigen (something that triggers an immune response). ... After the artificial node had filled with antigen-specific
T and
B cells, Watanabe transplanted it into a mouse with no functioning immune system. The
lymphocytes quickly spread out from the artificial node into the animals' own
lymph nodes ... After a month, these cells' 'memory' was still maintained, and they were able to fight off challenges from the antigen. ... The next step is to use human cells in humanised mice. Then, maybe in four or five years, we might be able to make the first prototypes of a human model ... By implanting artificial nodes plump with healthy T and B cells in AIDS patients, he believes he might be able to revitalise their damaged immune systems. For cancer, he hopes to adopt a similar approach in which the transplanted nodes will contain T cells trained to hunt down the antigens produced by tumour cells and kill them off."
View the Article Under Discussion:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11389-artificial-lymph-node-transplanted-into-mice.html
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