Code of the Moai

Welcome! This is the blog of Jason Wathey, a resident of the Seminole Heights neighborhood in Tampa, Florida. The main purpose of this blog is to give me yet another project that I will not be able to get to, while detailing random thoughts about the neighborhood, Tiki, Tiki drinks and mixology, life, the universe, and everything. Politics, my progress through HCC's nursing program, and my wife's progress on getting to medical school will probably come up a lot as well.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Natural Born Killer ...cells...


Ok, so here is a quick question for you folks out there: Did you know there are cells in your body right now that are able to target and kill some types of cancer cells?

No? Well, I did not know this either until a couple of weeks ago in my Anatomy & Physiology II class on the lymphatic system and immunological surveillance. The human body actually has a pretty sophisticated method for finding abnormal cells in the body; which includes bacterial cells, normal cells infected viruses, and abnormal growth cells (cancer).

Natural Killer cells are produced in the bone marrow by cells called hemocytoblasts (from which all blood cells originate), and then divide into lymphoid stem cells. At this point the stem cell, responding to various hormones, divides further into these NK cells. The NK cells' role is basically to seek and destroy. Interesting so far eh? The best part is coming...
NK cells are roaming throughout he body, and one comes upon an abnormal cell peppered with unusual surface proteins...it is time for action! The NK cell attaches to the abnormal cell and prepares for biological warfare by aiming it's golgi apparatus at the abnormal cell (think of a tank rotating it's turrent and fixing on a target). "Firing" commenses as the golgi apparatus releases hundreds of secretory vesicles filled with a protein called perforin, which as the name suggests perforate the target cell. As the target cells is inundated with perforins, small pores open up which disrupt the cellular activity within the abnormal cell by allowing the free passage of ions, proteins, and other intracellular materials into the cell. Obviously, at this point the cell can no longer maintain homostasis and ruptures! Three cheers for natural killer cells!

On a side note, scientists around the world are looking to unlock the secrets of natural killer cells as a possible cure for cancer. By reprogramming NK cells to recognize all cancer types...well, you know what that means... Check out the American Cancer Society to see how you can help.

There is also an excellent little animation here showing an NK cell attacking a cancer cell.

3 Comments:

At 8:31 AM, October 19, 2005, Blogger Nereia said...

That would be great if they could use these cells to fight off cancer in place of chemotherapy.

 
At 11:29 PM, October 21, 2005, Blogger alivinghominid said...

well, this is actually what one form of chemobasically does - the same cytokines that are doing the killing - IFN-y and TNF-a - can be exogenously applied to fight cancer.

 
At 11:30 PM, October 21, 2005, Blogger alivinghominid said...

by the way...it's frist, not frisk...and its dr. frist if you wanna get all technical i guess

 

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