Helping the body fight cancer/tumors

[Engineer Guy]

I'm a physics major, so I'm not an expert in this field, but I had an interesting idea about using the body's own immune system to fight tumors rather than pumping the body full of chemicals and radiation. Here's the general idea:

 

1. Patient has tumor.

2. Take blood sample from patient and isolate white blood cells.

3. Encourage rapid reproduction of desired cells.

4. Inject cells at tumor site or as close as possible.

 

The key point of this approach is that it would allow for controlled selection of white blood cells, ensuring that the cells most capable of fighting the tumor are sent directly to the location. Since I don't have the knowledge or resources to conduct this research myself, I thought I would put the idea out there in case anyone is interested in pursuing this. On that note, does anyone think this could be a viable way to fight certain types of cancer or other infections?

[Endy0816]

They don't always attack the tumor and can actually help it spread.

 

Would also want a bone marrow sample instead, not all white blood cell types replicate.

[Engineer Guy]

They don't always attack the tumor and can actually help it spread.

 

Would also want a bone marrow sample instead, not all white blood cell types replicate.

 

If some sort of tagging molecule was injected with the white blood cells that would only bind to the cancer cells, might it increase the chance of success?

 

Also, I was under the impression that macrophages had a tendency to attack cancerous cells because they recognized them as foreign.

[Endy0816]

Depending on what traits the tumor possesses it can fuse with the macrophage and then spread to other areas.