The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia (known as Peter Mac) has posted a very, very cool video. It shows how CAR-T works by showing the Killer T-Cells identifying abnormal (cancer) cells, connecting to them, and then signaling that the T cells should eliminate the cancer cell. It is extremely interesting.
The video, which won the "Best of Show" for both the Science and the Health categories at the Doctors Without Borders Film Festival, was created by Dr. Maja Divjak from Peter Mac.
The video is about 11 minutes long, and it can be found embedded in a story on the Peter Mac website. The video is also available on YouTube, where it might be have more helpful tools for those of you who need translation help.
I really enjoy videos like this. For the most part, I can picture the kinds of processes that are involved with cancer treatments. And while I do my best to describe them in simple terms, a picture is certainly more helpful in allowing people to see what is happening.
Maybe it's not really helpful in a lot of ways. Maybe seeing an immune cell find and eliminate a cancer cell doesn't help make the treatment any more effective. But to me, emotionally, it's great to see a treatment doing its job. It makes it seem more real. And for those of us with Follicular Lymphoma, a cancer with no easy answers and a lot of waiting around, seeing something that seems more concrete and real.
I hope you enjoy the video.
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