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Re:A cancer trial’s unexpected result: Remission in every pa... by _Microft on Sunday June 05, 2022 @11:47AM (#31632025)
The name of the drug ends in "-mab" [0] indicating that the drug is based on monoclonal antibodies [1,2]. Those antibodies are tweaked to bind to cancer cells which makes the immune system attack the cancer cells.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_nomenclature#List_of_stem...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoclonal_antibody

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoclonal_antibody_therapy

Re:A cancer trial’s unexpected result: Remission in every pa... by ufo on Sunday June 05, 2022 @02:40PM (#31633676)
IIRC, in this particular case the antibodies bind to immune cells. Immune Checkpoints are a mechanism that keeps the immune system from attacking the own body but in cancer it can also stop the immune system from destroying the cancer. The checkpoint inhibitor antibodies remove these restrictions and allow the immune cells to attack the cancer. (The price is that they also become free to attack other things they shouldn't; autoimmune inflamations are common side effects.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkpoint_inhibitor

Re:A cancer trial’s unexpected result: Remission in every pa... by dekhn on Thursday June 09, 2022 @07:17PM (#31688184)
Who the hell designed this computer?