The streets of London grow empty as businesses, universities, schools, stores and train stations are instructed to close. One would think it’s a public holiday, Christmas day perhaps. Everyone is at home spending time with their loved ones, taking a break before the New Year comes around with new goals and ambitions to achieve. But wait, that was just the end of March.
Long before modern medicine, immune response was someone’s first and last line of defense. Even if the modern era comes with everything from powerful antibiotics to antihistamines, some researchers still wonder if old school is best, and how they might modify the immune response to fight diseases like cancer. One method, where chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) modified natural killer (NK) cells could prove to be a powerful cancer-fighter with fewer side effects.
Cellular therapeutics is an emerging field with significant advances in the engineering of immune effector cells, which play a revolutionary role in treatment for cancer. Although most immunomodulatory strategies focus on enhancing T cells – which have proved their ability in successful cellular therapies against leukemia – this strategy may soon face competition. Through several preclinical studies, researchers have discovered new guardian immune cells called chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-modified natural killer (NK) cells, which show cytotoxic activity against various solid tumor types. The preclinical evidence suggests that NK cells have the same cancer-homing receptors as T cells and but need to be genetically modified to recognize and kill targets.
Naturally, zebrafish are found in places with a large amount of plants. However in laboratories, they are kept in very simple and empty environments, which has negative effects on their welfare. A common issue linked to this is the level of aggression within the group; lack of hiding spaces means victimised zebrafish cannot escape the aggressive individuals. Despite this, researchers worry that adding hiding spaces could reduce the water quality, affect the fish, and influence the experimental results. The aim of this experiment was to see if zebrafish were less aggressive when they had places to hide, compared to when the tank was empty. We also tested which type of hiding space the fish liked the most; this was done by seeing where the fish spent the most time when given the choice.
