Scientists from Harvard Medical School and the American Institute of MIT were able to achieve a very powerful step in the field of oncology treatment, by developing genetically modified immune cells capable of hunting down cancer cells and killing them without being affected by the human immune system.
The new cells are called CAR-NK, and they are a developed type of “natural killer cells” that work without prior training, that is, when they see a cancer cell, they attack it immediately, unlike some types of immunity that need first stimulation.
The problem was that the body itself attacked these modified cells as “foreign.” The researchers used genetic modification to disable the genes responsible for HLA class 1 proteins (which are the markers in which the body identifies foreign cells), so the cells began to hide from the immune radar.
To achieve this, they used a technology called siRNA, which relies on inactivating genes using a very small RNA code that enters cells and temporarily stops specific genes from working.
