Observing the immune system

For clinicians, the ability to look routinely inside the body and see, at the level of the cell, how it confronts disease is a distant dream.

But in a series of experiments with genetically engineered mice, a team of researchers from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) at the University of California Los Angeles has taken a key step toward realising that vision by demonstrating the ability to peer inside the body non-invasively and see the immune system at work.

The new research is important because it may one day aid physicians in the diagnosis and treatment of important conditions such as cancer and other diseases.

Writing in the November 15, 2005, issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a team of researchers led by HHMI investigator Owen N. Witte at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center reports the results of experiments that enabled the group to tune in to the cellular battles waged by the immune system deep in the body. Using positron emission tomography (PET), Witte and his colleagues were able to observe key cells of the immune system as they responded to tumours in mice.