FOCUSING in on one molecule's behaviour has strengthened Ballarat researchers' call for better treatment options to a cancer-like disease. Their findings could have a ripple effect on lots of similar diseases and potential cancers.
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Fiona Elsey Cancer Research Institute's Jenee Mitchell and George Kannourakis had their latest work published in international journal Frontiers in Immunology. The study looked at how molecule CD1a influenced T-cells in the immune system of people with the rare disease Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH).
Dr Mitchell said CD1a was highly present on T cells in LCH patients and new technology had allowed a chance to study new things in the immune system, such as how a sub-set of T cells might recognise this molecule on the surface of bad cells.
"It's a little surprising not a lot of people have picked this up in LCH and a lot of study is not easily commercially available," Dr Mitchell said. "We reviewed the literature and highlighted to the LCH community that we think this is a particular lead to follow."
WATCH: a closer look at the research below
FECRI is Australia's only research institute with a specific focus on LCH and has become recognised worldwide as a leader in this field.
LCH has been a specialty of Professor Kannourakis for more than three decades. He adopted LCH research as one of the institute's first focuses when he started the institute in a disused paint shed based at St John of God Hospital in Ballarat decades ago.
The disease, predominantly found in children, attacks multiple organs and can cause death in young children and disability in older children and adults.
Professor Kannourakis and Dr Mitchell have long argued against popular opinion, finding LCH was an auto-immune condition rather than a cancer and should be treated as such. They argue the difference should be forms of immunotherapy rather than aggressive chemotherapy or steroids.
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Dr Mitchell said the CD1a-restricted T cells made up about one per cent of all T cells but, comparatively, T cells in the body were highly abundant.
She also said the receptors on these cells were the same in all humans, meaning treatments could be streamlined rather than tailored, and could be adopted to tackle other disease.
Professor Kannourakis, who is also FECRI's honourary director, said gradually people were starting to listen and accept immunology as a treatment path for the future - it just took awhile to convince people and FECRi was not finished on this yet.
Dr Mitchell is now concentrating on digital spatial profiling on LCH tissue. She hoped to find a lot more information on proteins involved in LCH cells and be able to start mapping this in affected tissue.
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