Immune checkpoints prevent immune cells from prolonged or unnecessary immune responses

[Learner1]

Wonder if immune checkpoints apply to us? Wish some of this highly active research could leak our way...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/medica...com/news/2017-11-cancer-immune-systemwho.html

The researchers were inspired by the fact that immune checkpoints are not just present in cancer cells. They exist naturally in our body to prevent immune cells from prolonged or unnecessary immune responses, for example autoimmunity (where our immune system attacks our own cells).

....

Dr Tyson V. Sharp of Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, who collaborated with Dr Lagos in the study said: "Immuno-oncology, the study of anti-cancer immunity, is a highly active research space in cancer medicine.

"This exciting finding opens up new avenues of investigation that we believe can help us develop novel and more effective treatments for cancer, including cancers of unmet needs, such as lung and pancreatic cancer. More work is needed to reveal the full potential of this new discovery."

 

[jpcv]

Imunne check point inhibitors are THE big thing in câncer treatment in the moment.
The downside of these drugs are price and auto imunne reactions, some of them can be life threatining.
Maybe in the Future some research could Go in the opposite direction: the development of check point agonists that could be imunosupressive.

 

[halcyon]

Yes I think it applies to us. There is already ME research showing that we have these checkpoints activated. This is expected, given the other evidence of chronic T cell activation.

I'd love to see a trial of checkpoint inhibitors in ME, but as @jpcv notes they can be very dangerous.