The immune system it operates on a scale that scientists are only just beginning to understand. This up-to-date insight could change the way we fight diseases like cancer.
In a talk at WIRED Health on April 16, Daniel Davis, an immunologist at Imperial College London, detailed how researchers are using advanced microscopes to uncover previously unseen dynamics in the human immune system, showing that many processes occur at the “nanoscale” that were previously out of reach.
This up-to-date view is already changing the way we understand resilience. “We discovered something called an immune synapse, which means that many different protein molecules stimulate the immune system,” Davis said.
Today’s microscopes reveal worlds that “we simply didn’t know existed,” he explained. “There wasn’t really any hypothesis that led us to this,” he said. “It was observing events under a microscope.”
At this scale, even the first moments of cell contact look different. “When an immune cell sticks to another cell, it has to decide whether that other cell is healthy or diseased. Small nanoscale protrusions come out of the immune cell to make the first contact,” he said.
In collaboration with pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb, his lab is exploring how this level of detail can be used to not only observe immune responses, but also influence them. For example, after killing a diseased cell, the immune system cell must detach and attack another cell. This is a process that scientists have only recently been able to observe in detail.
Davis’ team is experimenting with redesigned antibodies – Y-shaped molecules that act as a bridge between immune cells and cancer cells – to amplify the signals that activate these immune cells. By binding to the immune cell in this way and bringing key proteins together, these molecules can “send a really strong, powerful signal to the immune cell to turn on and kill the tumor.”
Conceptually, this suggests that arranging the molecules on immune cells could raise their effectiveness at killing target cells, potentially improving the way the immune system attacks cancer or, in the case of autoimmune diseases, eliminates harmful cells. Although the work is currently in its early stages, Davis says they “eventually could create something that could be tried in patients.”
He explains that there are many different types of molecules whose position on the surface of the immune cell can be changed. “I have no idea which ones are worth targeting and which ones aren’t. Strategists are making a lot of bets at the moment.”
“A lot of different little startups are trying out a lot of different versions of this type of therapy,” trying to figure out what would enable such a robust response, he said.
In addition to these advances, Davis emphasized that immune health is inherently individual. He explained that of all human genes, the ones that differ the most are – perhaps surprisingly – not those that determine appearance, but those related to the immune system.
“There is a fundamental biological reason why humans are so diverse, and that is that our species has evolved to survive all kinds of diseases,” he said.
This means that people react differently to the same infection. “I might think I haven’t exercised enough, I haven’t eaten the right things, I’m too stressed,” he said. In fact, “you may have inherited a specific set of immune system genes that make you better at dealing with these kinds of diseases.”
“There is no hierarchy in the system,” he added.
Currently, the practice of immune health is not at a point where treatment can be adapted to these differences. Davis added that while some companies are working on personalized approaches, the ability to truly leverage individual immune health remains a future goal.