Sydney scientists have made a major cancer breakthrough, watching the body fight off tumour cells in real time in a development they say could help improve treatment for one of Australia’s worst cancers.
Remarkable footage shows immune cells known as macrophages, displayed in green, attacking and devouring live melanoma cancer cells shown in pink.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Sydney scientists capture immune cells devouring cancer
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Arrow
“The cells were actually able to ingest, to eat live tumour cells, which is not something that we had expected,” senior author Tri Yang Phan said.
“This, I think, has really changed the way how we’ve thought about the immune response.”
Doctors say the breakthrough could help researchers better understand how the body naturally fights cancer.
Remarkable footage shows immune cells known as macrophages, displayed in green, attacking and devouring live melanoma cancer cells shown in pink. Credit: 7NEWS For 60-year-old Anne Gately, a mother of two, the research hits close to home.
She had a melanoma removed from her back 16 years ago, but it returned in 2018 and spread throughout her body.
“My body was literally riddled with it. They told me that it was incurable, that I had maybe 12 to 24 months to live,” she said.
But just 97 days after trying a new immunotherapy drug, which helps the body’s own cells fight cancer, she was in remission.
“It’s a miracle,” she said.
Australia is the melanoma capital of the world, with almost 20,000 people diagnosed every year and 1300 deaths annually.
Researchers say boosting these immune cells could help make immunotherapy more effective for melanoma patients, especially those who do not respond to current treatment.
“I really hope that they find a way to be able to apply immunotherapy to other cancers,” Gately said.