Promising new treatment for Leukemia?

[crossfire]

New leukemia treatment exceeds 'wildest expectations'
Doctors have treated only three leukemia patients, but the sensational results from a single shot could be one of the most significant advances in cancer research in decades. And it almost never happened.

In the research published Wednesday, doctors at the University of Pennsylvania say the

Comments

[keeperofthekeys]

Ah, this is why I left formulation science to study immunology

[crossfire]

Yeah, I didn't really understand that part. What would it mean to a person's immunity if they didn't have any more B-cells? Loosing immunity to things that you'd previously contracted/been immunized for?

Immunology is crazy cool but it is so far outside my area of study...

[keeperofthekeys]

You'd lose antibody response to pathogens, though your cell-based response, which is mediated by T-cells, would remain functional. So some memory response would still be accessible. You'd mostly have loss of pathogen targeting and especially clearance, but T-cells, NK cells, and dendritic cells can hold their own. I'm a little fuzzy as to the details beyond that; I'm primarily a T-cell person, not a B-cell person.

ita re: immunology, obviously :P. I do not regret my decision to change fields at all

[crossfire]

*is fascinated*

So this doesn't totally blow away someone's immune system, but it does poke a pretty big hole in it?

My partner's mother died of leukemia, so there's an aspect of personal interest here too.

Your job must be so much more interesting than mine. (And that's saying something because my job is pretty engaging.)

[keeperofthekeys]

It would be crippled, but still functional. B cells are more like specialized soldiers; you might still be able to win the fight without them, but it's going to take a lot of work, there will be a loss of communication, and you might need to rely more on outside help.

Haha, it can be. I work on gonorrhea, so it's not as glamorous as I imagined--and there are always the day-to-day assays that are temperamental and it takes month and months to work out meaningful data. But immunology is still such a big puzzle, there's a lot to discover, and it can take a lot of creativity to explain data that didn't come out the way you thought it would. Which happens a lot.

What do you do, anyway?

[crossfire]

Ok, I think I understand, at least the basics. Immunology has advanced by leaps and bounds since I last paid any real effort to learning about it, which was back when I was at university some mumbledy-decades ago.

I'm a software engineer, my specialty is web-based technologies: JavaScript, HTML, CSS, especially on mobile devices. My degrees are in physics and mathematics though.