Federation University researchers have discovered for the first time how a type of white blood cell, responsible for fighting cancer and infection in the body, actually develops in the body which could be the key to unlocking new immunotherapy treatments in the future.
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It had long been thought that gamma-delta T cells were only made in the body during foetal development, but Professor Stuart Berzins and his team found the cells are produced continually throughout life in the thymus gland.
"Gamma-delta T cells we know are associated with fighting cancer and often involved in fighting other illness and infection. We know they are important and we also know that some people have a deficiency of these cells - they either haven't got enough of them or the cells don't work as they should," he said.
"What hasn't been known is how they develop and because of that we are not able to treat those illnesses and conditions because we don't know how they operate in the first place. You can't solve a problem you don't understand."
Professor Berzins, PhD student Louis Perriman and a group from the Murdoch Children's Research Institute used donated pieces of thymus tissue, removed from children undergoing heart surgery, in the research project which has been running about three years.
"We were able to study that because when you have heart operations in children, their heart is so small and thymus so big that often surgeons have to cut away a piece of the thymus to do work on the heart," he said.
The team identified how the cells develop in the thymus, which sits across the top of the heart.
"They start as stem cells that turn in to various types of cells," Professor Berzins said.
"A pathway of development and changes occur as it moves through the thymus.
"We have characterised that pathway, we know where they develop and how they develop and that gives us leverage ... and a lot more clues on what we can do to target these cells and use that immunotherapy to potentially treat people who have got insufficiency in these cells."
The research has been accepted for publication in the prestigious Science Immunology journal. The authors have also been invited to present their findings at several international conferences and scientific institutes.
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"The international recognition this research is receiving is very gratifying. It confirms the importance of the discoveries we have made and shows that Federation University continues to produce world-leading research, including in the area of Immunology, which is more traditionally associated with larger metropolitan universities and institutes," said Professor Berzins, who is group leader, human immunology at Federation's Institute of Innovation, Science and Sustainability.
The project team has applied for a grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council to fund further research into gamma-delta T cells to support the development of new immune-based therapies.
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