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T-Cells: The Dark Side
What we thought was cancer’s worst enemy can actually become the brain’s biggest threat.
My grandfather was diagnosed with bladder cancer when I was only a few years old. He suffered throughout his late sixties and is still recovering today. His treatment involved many chemotherapy sessions, but doctors have been suggesting for him to try other therapies — therapies involving T-cells.
T-cells are responsible for terminating cancerous cells in our bodies. There are even immunotherapies that involve engineering T-cells from patients’ blood samples and optimizing their cancer-terminating capabilities (CAR-T cell therapy).
Cancer emerges when unregulated mitosis becomes uncontrollable. This results in rapid cell division of abnormal, mutated cells.
When T-cells become uncontrollable, autoimmune diseases emerge. This results in autoimmune diseases we know as HIV, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis. Before I dive into the dark side of T-cells, let’s begin with how the immune system is supposed to operate — beginning with the lymphatic system.
