Cancer Counterattack

A vaccine made from patients' own cells helps treat B-cell lymphoma

THE HUMAN IMMUNE SYSTEM IS A POWERFUL DEfense against assaults by bacteria and viruses from outside the body, but now scientists may have found a way to turn it against a homegrown assailant: cancer. A research group at Stanford University has developed a vaccine that stimulates the body to fight B-cell lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system that strikes 20,000 Americans every year and is especially hard to treat. They did it by removing cancerous cells from nine patients and treating the cells to make them more irritating to the immune system. Then they were reinjected under the patients' skin....

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