Artificial Lymph Node
June 4, 2019 | Terry Sharrer
Lymph nodes are where T-cells go to learn what to do. In the natural environment, the T-cells pick up cytokines which guides them to their targets such as tumor cells. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine have found a way to mimic that natural environment, using hyaluronic acid hydrogel and added cytokines. As this piece reports: “When the Johns Hopkins team put T-cells onto a soft hydrogel, they found that the T-cells multiplied from just a few cells to about 150,000 cells — plenty to use for cancer therapy — within seven days. By contrast, when the scientists used other conventional methods to stimulate and expand T-cells, they were able to culture only 20,000 cells within seven days.” MORE
Image Credit: Hawley Pruitt, Johns Hopkins University and ScienceDaily.com