Personalized Medicine- The Future of Treatments??

Hi friends! We’re back today to talk about something a little more complicated than usual, but something that can be very exciting if it advances as hoped. Our immune systems are an amazing thing that are unique to each individual. Based on our experiences throughout life, our immune system has coded and developed into an army that is prepared to attack any invaders that you may come across. If you run into the same disease a second time, you might not even realize you have it! That’s how awesome our immune system can be. Scientists are now targeting our immature cells that haven’t been specified in our immune systems in order to fight some pretty serious conditions.

The treatment is called personalized medicine and the process is slightly complex so I’ll try and break it down. Your body has Dendritic cells (DC) and T cells that are made but they’re just in your body waiting for a pathogen to come so it can specialize to attack that pathogen. These are called naive cells. Doctors are targeting these cells and making them differentiate to target exactly what needs to be attacked. I found this topic to be particularly exciting because it is a way scientists are using to treat cancer, something we thought was incurable only a few years ago. A certain article I found about using DC therapy to treat Mesothelioma as a vaccine. This vaccine used specialized dendritic cells to activate T cells that in turn would attack the Mesothelioma.

What’s even better about this treatment is that the cost is low! Now, I wouldn’t say significantly lower but it would be lower and less intense than constant Chemo treatment. It’s not necessarily miraculous, though, and there are some risks to be wary of. The treatment obviously impacts your immune system in an intense way. This won’t always be helpful and can actually harm you pretty bad if it doesn’t go as planned. Cytokine Toxicity Syndrome and neurotoxicity are also risks to be aware of. The development of this treatment is truly groundbreaking and as medicine evolves we may enter a whole new realm of treatment.