A study from the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Immunotherapy Research Center released this week highlights the discovery of a new class of immune-activating molecules that could help the body’s immune system fight cancer.

Published on Wednesday in the prestigious journal Cell, the report by Weizmann director Prof. Ido Amit comes just five months after an Iranian ballistic missile hit the institute’s Wolfson building, which housed Amit’s lab.

“We lost 70% of our materials,” Amit told The Times of Israel. “Almost nothing was left. And despite that, we improvised and used innovation to continue our research with even more conviction.”

The study focuses on macrophages — from the Greek words for “big eaters” — special white blood cells that are normally able to digest bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells.

However, inside tumors, macrophages don’t eat cancer cells, but rather help them grow. The lab designed biological molecules to block these dangerous macrophages and, at the same time, prompt other immune cells to attack the cancer.

The research was led by PhD student Michelle von Locquenghien, Dr. Pascale Zwicky, and Dr. Ken Xie of Amit’s lab, in collaboration with researchers from Weizmann’s Systems Immunology Department and scientists from Immunai, a New York-based company.

The important discovery could have broad applications for immunotherapy for cancers such as pancreatic and lung cancer, which are currently less responsive to immunotherapies.

“We think this research will provide a lot of opportunities, even for patients who have resistance to different types of immunotherapy,” Amit said. “This could have huge potential.”

Amit’s earlier studies showed that some macrophages inside tumors were not doing their usual job of helping the body. Instead, they were actually helping the cancer.

These macrophages had high........

© The Times of Israel