By Satyaki Paul
Recently, the Department of BioTechnology (DBT)—National Institute of Immunology (NII) has received trademark for India’s first indigenously produced tumour antigen SPAG9. The SPAG9 was first discovered by Dr. Anil Kumar in 1988, he is currently heading the Cancer research Program at National Institute of Immunology (NII), New Delhi.
Presently, ASPAGNIITMis being used in dendritic cells (DC—are a type of antigen-presenting cell (APC) that perform an important role in the adaptive immune system) based immunotherapy in cervical, ovarian, and breast cancer.
All these leads to a question that: Why study Immunotherapy?Immunotherapy is a novel approach that uses the human body’s internal capability to counter cancer cells. In this way, either the immune system is given anenhancement, or the T cells are “trained’’ to classifyunruly cancer cells and kill them all. In this customized intervention, those individuals expressing SPAG9 protein can be treated with DC-based vaccine approach. In DC-based vaccine, an individual’s cells i.e., monocytes from their blood are collected and altered into Dendritic Cells. These dendritic cells are primed with ASPAGNIITM and are inoculated back to the individual to aid the fighter/T-cells, in the body to kill the cancer cells. The Dendritic cell-based immunotherapy is safe, affordable and can promote antitumor immune responses and also can extendthe survival rate of cancer affected individuals.
The author works as a Ph.D. Research Scholar at the Department of Anthropology, University of Calcutta, and the co-author of the book Anthropology For All (2021).