Scientists learn what fuels the 'natural killers' of the immune system -- ScienceDaily
Despite a name straight from a Tarantino movie, natural killer (NK) cells are your allies when it comes to fighting infections and cancer. If T cells are like a team of specialist doctors in an emergency room, NK cells are the paramedics: They arrive first on the scene and perform damage control until reinforcements arrive.
Part of our innate immune system, which dispatches these first responders, NK cells are primed from birth to recognize and respond to danger. Learning what fuels NK cells is an active area of research in immunology, with important clinical implications.
"There's a lot of interest right now in NK cells as a potential target of immunotherapy," says Joseph Sun, an immunologist in the Sloan Kettering Institute. "The more we can understand what drives these cells, the better we can program them to fight disease."
Despite a name straight from a Tarantino movie, natural killer (NK) cells are your allies when it comes to fighting infections and cancer. If T cells are like a team of specialist doctors in an emergency room, NK cells are the paramedics: They arrive first on the scene and perform damage control until reinforcements arrive.
