Project 458594

The immune system is trained at recognizing and killing dangerous objects in your body. These dangerous objects could be bacteria, viruses, or cancer. Sometimes cancer is able to evade the immune system, allowing it to grow and become dangerous. Scientists have tried different ways of treating cancer. Some of these involve strengthening your immune system to fight cancer. One of these ways is taking small 'glues', which 'bridges' an immune cell and a cancer cell. Upon this bridging, the immune cell can attack, eat, or kill the cancer cell. A macrophage is an immune cell which eats diseased cells. Our proposal is to create a unique molecule which bridges immune cells and cancer cells. This molecule would help macrophages find and eat cancer cells. The first part of the molecule binds to the cancer cell, the second binds to the macrophage. The third part is unique chemistry in which it permanently connects the molecule to the macrophage or natural killer. This makes sure the molecule stays connected to the macrophage, and helps it find and eat cancer better. We plan on building these molecules and testing how well they help macrophages eat cancer cells. We also want to determine if the unique chemistry which permanently connects the molecule to macrophages makes it even better at finding and eating cancer.