Dendritic Cells, Immunotherapy and the Anti-cancer T cell Response

Autoimmunity is a disorder of the body’s defense mechanism in which an immune response is elicited against its own tissues. This is a defi nition from the Oxford Dictionary of Biology. At some point in your life, you will probably experience some problems related to autoimmunity. Arthritis is an example. The pain associated with this disease can be severe. If you develop cancer, there is a high likelihood you will suffer from some type of autoimmune reaction. When a cancer cell develops, the T cell immune system has a problem. It will ask itself, “Is this cell normal or abnormal?” This may take a long time. Sometimes, by the time the T cell immune system realizes that the cell is cancer, it is too late. If not, the T cells move in to attack the cancer, but the system is still quite confused. That confusion causes normal cells to be destroyed. This is the short defi nition of cancerinduced autoimmunity.