探花直播 of Cambridge - Department of Pathology

AI is as good as pathologists at diagnosing coeliac disease, study finds

cjb250 — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 13:00:03 +0000

A machine learning algorithm developed by Cambridge scientists was able to correctly identify in 97 cases out of 100 whether or not an individual had coeliac disease based on their biopsy, new research has shown.

Scientists discover how aspirin could prevent some cancers from spreading

jg533 — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 16:00:58 +0000

They say that discovering the mechanism will support ongoing clinical trials, and could lead to the targeted use of aspirin to prevent the spread of susceptible types of cancer, and to the development of more effective drugs to prevent cancer metastasis.

探花直播scientists caution that, in some people, aspirin can have serious side-effects and clinical trials are underway to determine how to use it safely and effectively to prevent cancer spread, so people should consult their doctor before starting to take it.

Studies of people with cancer have previously observed that those taking daily low-dose aspirin have a reduction in the spread of some cancers, such as breast, bowel, and prostate cancers, leading to ongoing clinical trials. However, until now it wasn鈥檛 known exactly how aspirin could prevent metastases.

Professor Rahul Roychoudhuri in the Department of Pathology at the 探花直播 of Cambridge, who led the work, said: 鈥淒espite advances in cancer treatment, many patients with early stage cancers receive treatments, such as surgical removal of the tumour, which have the potential to be curative, but later relapse due to the eventual growth of micrometastases 鈥� cancer cells that have seeded other parts of the body but remain in a latent state.

鈥淢ost immunotherapies are developed to treat patients with established metastatic cancer, but when cancer first spreads there鈥檚 a unique therapeutic window of opportunity when cancer cells are particularly vulnerable to immune attack. We hope that therapies that target this window of vulnerability will have tremendous scope in preventing recurrence in patients with early cancer at risk of recurrence.鈥�

探花直播study was published on 5 March in the journal 'Nature'.

探花直播scientists say their discovery of how aspirin reduces cancer metastasis was serendipitous. They were investigating the process of metastasis, because, while cancer starts out in one location, 90% of cancer deaths occur when cancer spreads to other parts of the body.

探花直播scientists wanted to better understand how the immune system responds to metastasis, because when individual cancer cells break away from their originating tumour and spread to another part of the body they are particularly vulnerable to immune attack. 探花直播immune system can recognise and kill these lone cancer cells more effectively than cancer cells within larger originating tumours, which have often developed an environment that suppresses the immune system.聽

探花直播researchers previously screened 810 genes in mice and found 15 that had an effect on cancer metastasis. In particular, they found that mice lacking a gene which produces a protein called ARHGEF1 had less metastasis of various primary cancers to the lungs and liver.聽

探花直播researchers determined that ARHGEF1 suppresses a type of immune cell called a T cell, which can recognise and kill metastatic cancer cells.聽

To develop treatments to take advantage of this discovery, they needed to find a way for drugs to target it. 探花直播scientists traced signals in the cell to determine that ARHGEF1 is switched on when T cells are exposed to a clotting factor called thromboxane A2 (TXA2).

This was an unexpected revelation for the scientists, because TXA2 is already well-known and linked to how aspirin works.聽

TXA2 is produced by platelets - a cell in the blood stream that helps blood clot, preventing wounds from bleeding, but occasionally causing heart attacks and strokes. Aspirin reduces the production of TXA2, leading to the anti-clotting effects, which underlies its ability to prevent heart attacks and strokes.聽

This new research found that aspirin prevents cancers from spreading by decreasing TXA2 and releasing T cells from suppression. They used a mouse model of melanoma to show that in mice given aspirin, the frequency of metastases was reduced compared to control mice, and this was dependent on releasing T cells from suppression by TXA2.

Dr Jie Yang in the Department of Pathology at the 探花直播 of Cambridge, first author of the report, said: 鈥淚t was a Eureka moment when we found TXA2 was the molecular signal that activates this suppressive effect on T cells. Before this, we had not been aware of the implication of our findings in understanding the anti-metastatic activity of aspirin. It was an entirely unexpected finding which sent us down quite a different path of enquiry than we had anticipated.鈥澛�

鈥淎spirin, or other drugs that could target this pathway, have the potential to be less expensive than antibody-based therapies, and therefore more accessible globally.鈥�

In the future, the researchers plan to help the translation of their work into potential clinical practice by collaborating with Professor Ruth Langley, of the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at 探花直播 College London, who is leading the Add-Aspirin clinical trial, to find out if aspirin can stop or delay early stage cancers from coming back.聽

Professor Langley, who was not involved in this study, commented: 鈥淭his is an important discovery. It will enable us to interpret the results of ongoing clinical trials and work out who is most likely to benefit from aspirin after a cancer diagnosis.鈥澛�

鈥淚n a small proportion of people, aspirin can cause serious side-effects, including bleeding or stomach ulcers. Therefore, it is important to understand which people with cancer are likely to benefit.鈥�

探花直播research was principally funded by the Medical Research Council, with additional funding from the Wellcome Trust and European Research Council.聽

探花直播Add-Aspirin clinical trial is funded by Cancer Research UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Research, the Medical Research Council and the Tata Memorial Foundation of India.聽

Reference: J Yang, et al:聽鈥�Aspirin prevents metastasis by limiting platelet TXA2 suppression of T cell immunity.鈥澛燦ature, March 2025. DOI:聽10.1038/s41586-025-08626-7

Adapted from a press release by the Medical Research Council.

Scientists have uncovered the mechanism behind how aspirin could reduce the metastasis of some cancers by stimulating the immune system.

Aspirin has the potential to be less expensive than antibody-based therapies, and therefore more accessible globally.

Jie Yang

Tetra Images on Getty

探花直播text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥� on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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10 Cambridge spinouts forging a future for our planet

skbf2 — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 10:07:50 +0000

10 companies taking Cambridge ideas out of the lab and into the real world to address the climate emergency.

New study aims to catch cancer earlier than ever before

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 07:49:08 +0000

Currently cancer is usually diagnosed when tumours are already developed requiring, often significant, treatment to remove them and prevent further growth.

However, a research team at the 探花直播 of Cambridge will receive over 拢1.5m from Cancer Research UK聽over the next six years to investigate how the immune system evolves, targets and kills cancer cells as tumours are developing.

They hope by detecting the trigger point when our own body starts to recognise cancerous cells, it may help find a way to spark our own immune system into action so it kills cancer cells before tumours can even begin.

This could vastly reduce the amount of treatment people diagnosed with cancer require, which can often have significant side effects. 探花直播pioneering work could benefit millions of cancer patients before the disease becomes life-threatening or spreads.

Dr Heather Machado is leading a team of scientists at the Department of Pathology, looking at the body's immune system's ability to fight cancer. 聽Dr Machado鈥檚 work on T cells 鈥� part of the immune system which fight infection and disease, including cancer 鈥� will provide an聽insight into how long before a diagnosis these cells recognize and respond to cancer.

探花直播study will specifically examine how T cells respond to cancer when they first recognise and respond to a tumour in the kidneys or the liver.

探花直播breakthrough study has the potential to unlock the mystery as to how our immune cells work to fight cancer.

Dr Machado said: 鈥淯sing mutations that naturally accumulate in each of our cells as we age, we can essentially build a family tree of T-cells, and this family tree has information about when T-cells met cancer for the first time. This research is only now possible as a result of advancements in DNA sequencing technology.

鈥淭his research has the potential to give an entirely new perspective on the role of the immune system in cancer progression, findings that we hope to use to further improve lifesaving cancer immunotherapies.鈥�

Her aim is to see if they could lead to specific immunotherapy treatments and ways of detecting the cancer earlier.

She added: 鈥淢ost cancers are diagnosed years or decades after early tumour development, which can often be too late. Our methods will allow us to go back in the cancer鈥檚 timeline to understand the immune response in these early stages of cancer development. Beyond improving immunotherapies, we hope that this understanding helps us detect cancer earlier, at stages where survival rates are much higher.鈥�

探花直播body鈥檚 immune system is the first line of defence against cancer but previously it has been difficult to observe this early response in humans.

Dr Machado will use genome sequencing which determines the genetic makeup of an organism to study how a tumour and the immune cells co-evolve over the course of tumour development.聽

She will time T cell clonal expansions using evolutionary trees built from the genomes of individual T cells, exploiting recent advancements in single-cell whole genome sequencing. Dr Machado will then perform these experiments using early-stage kidney and liver cancer resections and by sampling throughout the course of immunotherapy in metastatic kidney cancer.鈥�

She added: 鈥� 探花直播study is believed to be the first of its kind in the world and it has the potential to be groundbreaking research as we have never been able to examine these evolutionary dynamics in humans before. How long before a tumour is diagnosed has the immune system been responding is an incredibly hard problem to solve because these immune dynamics play out years prior to diagnosis.

鈥淣ormal cells evolve into tumours, and we are blind to much of that process and yet the immune system is one of our best tools for fighting cancer.

Dr Machado studied for her PhD at Stanford 探花直播 and completed her post doctorate research at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK. She added: 鈥淲e are using cutting edge technology that is only available now and we are going to be able to discover how the immune system responds to tumours unlike we have ever seen before and that, is potentially life changing in terms of improving immunotherapies for better health and patient prognosis.鈥�

Find out how Cambridge is changing the story of cancer

Adapted from a press release from Cancer Research UK

A new study aims, for the first time, to pinpoint the very moment the immune system recognises a tumour to try to stop the disease earlier than previously possible.

This research has the potential to give an entirely new perspective on the role of the immune system in cancer progression

Heather Machado

Samir

CT scan showing cholangiocarcinoma

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Becoming a scientist

ps748 — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 11:28:37 +0000

A team of scientists at the 探花直播 of Cambridge feature in a new graphic book highlighting their individual journeys into the career of their dreams.

探花直播master of mutations

lkm37 — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 13:39:02 +0000

Dr Alex Cagan 鈥� illustrator, geneticist and explorer of animal DNA 鈥� is offering a new perspective on the tapestry of life. His work has profound implications for the pursuit of healthy ageing and the possibilities of cancer resistance.

Discovery of 鈥榥ew rules of the immune system鈥� could improve treatment of inflammatory diseases, say scientists.

jg533 — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 15:02:29 +0000

This overturns the traditional thinking that regulatory T cells exist as multiple specialist populations that are restricted to specific parts of the body. 探花直播finding has implications for the treatment of many different diseases 鈥� because almost all diseases and injuries trigger the body鈥檚 immune system.

Current anti-inflammatory drugs treat the whole body, rather than just the part needing treatment. 探花直播researchers say their findings mean it could be possible to shut down the body鈥檚 immune response and repair damage in any specific part of the body, without affecting the rest of it. This means that higher, more targeted doses of drugs could be used to treat disease 鈥� potentially with rapid results.

鈥淲e鈥檝e uncovered new rules of the immune system. This 鈥榰nified healer army鈥� can do everything - repair injured muscle, make your fat cells respond better to insulin, regrow hair follicles. 聽To think that we could use it in such an enormous range of diseases is fantastic: it鈥檚 got the potential to be used for almost everything,鈥� said Professor Adrian Liston in the 探花直播 of Cambridge鈥檚 Department of Pathology, senior author of the paper.

To reach this discovery, the researchers analysed the regulatory T cells present in 48 different tissues in the bodies of mice. This revealed that the cells are not specialised or static, but move through the body to where they鈥檙e needed. 探花直播results are published today in the journal Immunity.

鈥淚t's difficult to think of a disease, injury or infection that doesn鈥檛 involve some kind of immune response, and our finding really changes the way we could control this response,鈥� said Liston.

He added: 鈥淣ow that we know these regulatory T cells are present everywhere in the body, in principle we can start to make immune suppression and tissue regeneration treatments that are targeted against a single organ 鈥� a vast improvement on current treatments that are like hitting the body with a sledgehammer.鈥�

Using a drug they have already designed, the researchers have shown - in mice - that it鈥檚 possible to attract regulatory T cells to a specific part of the body, increase their number, and activate them to turn off the immune response and promote healing in just one organ or tissue.

鈥淏y boosting the number of regulatory T cells in targeted areas of the body, we can help the body do a better job of repairing itself, or managing immune responses,鈥� said Liston.

He added: 鈥淭here are so many different diseases where we鈥檇 like to shut down an immune response and start a repair response, for example autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, and even many infectious diseases.鈥�

Most symptoms of infections such as COVID are not from the virus itself, but from the body鈥檚 immune system attacking the virus. Once the virus is past its peak, regulatory T cells should switch off the body鈥檚 immune response, but in some people the process isn鈥檛 very efficient and can result in ongoing problems. 探花直播new finding means it could be possible to use a drug to shut down the immune response in the patient鈥檚 lungs, while letting the immune system in the rest of the body continue to function normally.

In another example, people who receive organ transplants must take immuno-suppressant drugs for the rest of their lives to prevent organ rejection, because the body mounts a severe immune response against the transplanted organ. But this makes them highly vulnerable to infections. 探花直播new finding helps the design of new drugs to shut down the body鈥檚 immune response against only the transplanted organ but keep the rest of the body working normally, enabling the patient to lead a normal life.

Most white blood cells attack infections in the body by triggering an immune response. In contrast, regulatory T cells act like a 鈥榰nified healer army鈥� whose purpose is to shut down this immune response once it has done its job - and repair the tissue damage caused by it.

探花直播researchers are now fundraising to set up a spin-out company, with the aim of running clinical trials to test their findings in humans within the next few years.

探花直播research was funded by the European Research Council (ERC), Wellcome, and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

Reference: Liston, A. 鈥� 探花直播tissue-resident regulatory T cell pool is shaped by transient multi-tissue migration and a conserved residency program.鈥� Immunity, June 2024. DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2024.05.023

Scientists at the 探花直播 of Cambridge have discovered that a type of white blood cell - called a regulatory T cell - exists as a single large population of cells that constantly move throughout the body looking for, and repairing, damaged tissue.

It's difficult to think of a disease, injury or infection that doesn鈥檛 involve some kind of immune response, and our finding really changes the way we could control this response.

Adrian Liston

Louisa Wood/ Babraham Institute

Dr James Dooley, a senior author of the study, in the laboratory

In brief

A single large population of healer cells, called regulatory T cells, is whizzing around our body - not multiple specialist populations restricted to specific parts of the body as previously thought.
These cells shut down inflammation and repair the collateral damage to cells caused after our immune system has responded to injury or illness.
Tests, in mice, of a drug developed by the researchers showed that regulatory T cells can be attracted to specific body parts, boosted in number, and activated to suppress immune response and rebuild tissue.
Current anti-inflammatory drugs used for this purpose suppress the body鈥檚 whole immune system, making patients more vulnerable to infection.
探花直播discovery could lead to more targeted treatments, with fewer side-effects, for issues from lengthy COVID infections to autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis. Clinical trials in humans are now planned.

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CamFest Speaker Spotlight: Professor Adrian Liston

zs332 — Sun, 17 Mar 2024 14:51:12 +0000

Adrian Liston, Professor of Pathology at the 探花直播 of Cambridge, talks about our extraordinary immune system ahead of his event, Diversity in the immune system on 20th March.