To conclude our cancer vaccine story, we are going to take a closer look at the multi-tasking abilities of the B cell.

In the last post, we covered how the B cell has the ability to transform into a killer T cell (which is pretty COOL) that can take care of the very invading foreign particle which first stimulated it into action.

Furthermore, the B cell is also capable of transforming into another type of cell, called the plasma cell. This is actually an extremely important aspect of our immune system, and that is, the ability to catalog what has been encountered in order to recognize and quickly destroy the foreign particles the next time it invades our bodies. And because it already has the recognition part down, it works far faster and much more powerfully to neutralize that threat.

So in the graphic, some of the B cells will go in the direction of arrow 4, while a smaller fraction will go the way of arrow 6. These transformed B cells become plasma cells, which serve as the filing cabinets of the immune system that are coupled with a powerful search engine. So, if that foreign particle once again gets into our bodies, the plasma cells rapidly (and I mean rapidly) identify the invader as “bad” and signals the T cells to attack and destroy.

It is a truly, amazing defense system. And thanks to scientific research, we have folks dedicated to figuring out how to stimulate and fine tune our natural defense system to work more effectively for us.

I love having this post as a forum to share important information about science, medicine, and health. And so, to help me cope with an event of this past December, I’m sharing with you a simple test that everyone should know and is easy to perform. My niece knew it, and for that she was able to save a life.

This test is called FAST, and it’s an acronym for F-ace, A-rm, S-peech, and T-ime. This simple test is what you perform on someone when you suspect they are having a stroke. But to back up, let’s quickly review what a stroke is, and what symptoms would clue you off to someone experiencing a stroke.

First, a stroke describes what happens when the brain has been oxygen-deprived, and tissue damage has begun to occur. Once tissue damage becomes significant, a myriad of problems can occur: speech becomes slurred, incomprehensible (words aren't pronounced properly) or doesn’t make sense (words jumbled together), the person becomes unresponsive to questions, eyes cannot track movement or the person reports distorted vision, odd repetitive movements of the head occur, lack of mobility in the body (like the arms) happens, and even visible changes in facial structure (a drooping corner of the mouth, or a whole side of a face is slack) are seen.

Oxygen deprivation can also occur in many ways. The most familiar one is that a clot has broken off from the wall of an artery (vessel that carries oxygen-rich  blood from the heart to the rest of the body) from where it formed, traveled through the heart, the lungs, and finally lodges in a smaller vessel that leads to the brain. From there, it cuts off the oxygen-rich blood to the brain, and that is how the brain tissue starts to get damaged.

A lesser known cause is that a vessel that drains the oxygen-depleted blood, called a vein (vessel that brings blood back to the heart for oxygenation), can get clogged by a clot as well. This occurrence is actually extremely rare, and so although the brain is able to receive oxygen-rich blood, the oxygen-depleted blood cannot drain away. And when it has nowhere to go, it floods the brain tissue, which, if you can imagine, is somewhat akin to the tissue getting drowned in excess fluid. Thus the same thing results: the tissue starts to get damaged.

So, a very quick and easy test to know and perform on someone who might be exhibiting some of the symptoms mentioned above, is the FAST test. You can ask the questions in the following way:

“Can you smile?” or “Show me your teeth!”

“Can you close your eyes and raise your arms?” or “Raise your arms!”

“What is your name? How old are you? What’s your address?” or “Can you repeat this sentence, ”The weather sure is cloudy today!”

If the person fails these tests, CALL 9-1-1 ASAP. Don’t hesitate, because the more time the brain tissue is damaged, the less of a chance it has to undo the damage and recover. Because it can, and it will, if we act FAST.

I'm so sorry, I'm late in posting this one which should have gone out January 26!

So, here we are, with our final discussion of cancer vaccines, which was the 3rd approach in immunotherapy after checkpoint blockade and CAR T cell.

Last post we talked about how a certain type of cancer vaccine wasn’t really a “vaccine” in the true definition of providing protection AGAINST a certain disease. Rather, it was helping to prevent further spread of disease, and in some cases, even treating or fighting the disease.

In this post, we’ll discuss how a cancer vaccine does function to help our own immune system fight against acquisition of disease: in this case, we’ll look at the HPV vaccine, which protects us from cancers caused by the Human Papilloma virus.

The technological approach uses the same theory we have been employing for decades. We modify the actual virus in some way as to make it unable to replicate and spread throughout our body. But we don’t modify that virus to the point that it doesn’t look like itself anymore. In the graphic above, it is the lighter green version of the virus labeled “HPV vaccine,” that has had its gene altered in a way that prevents it from replicating (dark green portion of pink gene).

This modified version of the HPV is then introduced into our system (1) . As it is a foreign substance, an antigen presenting cell (APC) scaven ging the blood encounters this modified virus and processes a piece of it to then present it to a helper T cell (2). The helper T cell then signals the B cell (3) to then turn into activated killer T cells that will take care of the foreign HPV particles (4, 5). Regardless of whether or not the vaccine viruses cause disease is actually irrelevant to the killer T cell.

Now, that process takes care of the modified HPV particles that have been introduced to our bodies in the form of the vaccine. But later, if HPV once again gets into our bodies, what do you think will happen at step 6? Answer, next post!