Topic description and stories

Sir Gregory Winter

Sir Greg Winter wins the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

03 Oct 2018

Sir Greg Winter, of the University of Cambridge, has been jointly awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, along with Frances Arnold and George...

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Synthetic organs, nanobots and DNA ‘scissors’: the future of medicine

12 Oct 2017

Nanobots that patrol our bodies, killer immune cells hunting and destroying cancer cells, biological scissors that cut out defective genes: these are...

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The self-defence force awakens

04 Jul 2017

Our immune systems are meant to keep us healthy, but sometimes they turn their fire on us, with devastating results. Immunotherapies can help defend...

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Weight loss condition provides insight into failure of cancer immunotherapies

08 Nov 2016

A weight loss condition that affects patients with cancer has provided clues as to why cancer immunotherapy – a new approach to treating cancer by...

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Self-renewable killer cells could be key to making cancer immunotherapy work

26 Oct 2016

A small molecule that can turn short-lived ‘killer T-cells’ into long-lived, renewable cells that can last in the body for a longer period of time...

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Peanuts

Study of peanut allergy therapy shows 84 per cent success

30 Jan 2014

A new therapy for peanut allergy has been successful in the majority of the 99 children who took part in a clinical trial.

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Left: pancreatic cancer cells (in green) Right: after six days of combined tumour immunotherapy, the cancerous cells had been killed.

Breaking down cancer’s defence mechanisms

20 Dec 2013

Researchers have identified how the ‘wall’ around cancer tumours functions and how to break it down, enabling the body’s own defences to reach and...

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