3D movies. 3D printers. Over the years, we have seen an emergence of new technology that has made this man-made 3D world more accessible and attainable to the everyday person. As we enter into 2015, scientists have made great progress in implementing 3D technology into the medical field.
Cancer is one of the top priorities in medical research. Its ability to evade the defenses sent out by the body’s own immune system makes it a formidable foe to the health of an individual. In recent years, a lot of research has been focused on immunotherapy: a treatment based on manipulating the body’s immune system with vaccines to combat diseases. Some of the early vaccinations created for cancer, such as tumor cell vaccines, were produced by removing cancer cells from the individual, manipulating the cells externally, and re-injecting them to produce a direct immune response.
Recently, scientists at Harvard conducted an experiment on mice using a 3D vaccine that they created in the lab. Now, you may be asking, what are 3D vaccines? Well, they are composed of man-made mesoporous silica rods (MSR). Once injected into the body, these rods self-assemble into scaffolds with pores establishing a 3D environment. These nano-pores can be filled with various antigens, drugs, or other substances. Depending on what is being carried in the nano-pores, immune cells will start to gather and bring immune attention to whatever the scaffolds may be structured around.
In this particular experiment, researchers at Harvard discovered that mice given the MSR vaccine had higher levels of helper T-cells, cytotoxic T-cells, and antibodies. In other words, the 3D vaccine was more effective in recruiting the body’s immune system to fight against diseases that it previously failed to treat.
More research is definitely needed to further confirm the benefits of using a 3D vaccine. However, based on the results of the mice experiment, it appears that these MSRs may potentially be the future of vaccinations, particularly for diseases like cancer and HIV that have, until now, been avoiding the defenses of the immune system. Perhaps with this new treatment in the medical tool box, diseases like cancer and HIV will become much less of a threat.
Feature Image Source: Bill Smith
