New Harvard vaccine technique coats red blood cells in nanoparticles :
Researchers at Harvard have developed a new platform for producing vaccines – and the secret ingredient is blood. The technique involves loading red blood cells with antigens that they can then use to generate a specific immune response, and tests in mice have shown it is effective in slowing the growth of cancer.
[...] Red blood cells have a secondary function of carrying neutralized pathogens to the spleen, where they’re passed onto antigen-presenting cells (APCs). From there, white blood cells learn to recognize these antigens, which are the molecules of a pathogen that the body uses to launch a counter-attack. This improves the immune response against those pathogens.
The new system, named Erythrocyte-Driven Immune Targeting (EDIT), exploits this. The problem is that normally, the payload is sheared off as red blood cells squeeze through narrow capillaries in the lungs, so much of it never reaches the spleen. But the team developed a way to stick antigen nanoparticles to red blood cells firmly enough to reach their destination.
Tests in mice showed immune response was boosted eight-fold, and tumor growth rates were reduced by one-third.
Journal Reference:
Anvay Ukidve, Zongmin Zhao, Alexandra Fehnel, et al. Erythrocyte-driven immunization via biomimicry of their natural antigen-presenting function [$], Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2002880117)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 15 2020, @01:57PM (1 child)
I thought they were going to say that they targeted the nanoparticles to the depression in the centers of the red blood cells' sides...
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @07:28AM
That almost donut shape is only when they are free of stress. If you watch a video of them moving through capillaries they are small flexible sacks of red goo. They squash, twist, bulge and deform to get through tight spaces.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2020, @02:10PM (2 children)
Are they harvesting blood from millenials for this? Seems like a good use for millenials.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 15 2020, @02:52PM (1 child)
Better: post-zoomer (generation alpha) blood.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2020, @03:51PM
The Scientologists have been waiting patiently for more virgin blood...
(Score: 1) by gmby on Wednesday July 15 2020, @02:31PM (2 children)
You want to train your immune system to attack red blood cells? Sounds very scary to me.
Oh and the whole nano-thing.... not good.
Micro-plastics in the water. - Check
Toxic chems in the air. - Check
Poisons in the food. - Check
CO2 levels rising. - Check
Nano-trash in the human. - Check
I think that about does it. Those pesky violent humans won't ever survive to move off that rock.
Bye
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2020, @03:40PM
In other news, the Borg have a new backstory.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday July 16 2020, @06:32PM
TFA says they attached nanoparticles to red blood cells that are designed to provoke a specific response. But the red blood cells travel into the spleen where they impart that information to white blood cells. So the red blood cells are not the target of the attack, but deliver the target information to the white blood cells.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Wednesday July 15 2020, @05:44PM
Who is going to believe anyone about what nanobots are doing if we cant all agree on something as simple and supposedly historically routine as a virus.
I swear I am reading front page news articles about a virus that can go through walls, give you permanent brain damage, live on mars for a year without food, and there are fist fights in the street over whether it is best to wear a mask or who even has the right to tell who to wear a mask, and the greatest purveyor of computer virus-susceptability is inexplicably the authority on biological viruses.
And I am supposed to believe someone made a tempest in a teapot with X qualities and I just dont have the willpower to trust this is going to ever do me any good. And if it could do me good, it would just be what they promise me to get me to inject whatever plausibly deniable population control mechanism they have decided upon for the next thousand years of tyranny.
My gut says we are already deep into world war 3 and the battle is being fought at a microscopic level, and if they told us the truth about what is really out there the panic would be an ELE itself.
Like, I remember hearing about mount weather being sealed a few months ago, is that still the case? News on this sort of question seems difficult to find at the moment....
(Score: 1) by Zinnia Zirconium on Wednesday July 15 2020, @11:42PM
Do nanoparticles make blood unpalatable to vampires?