IMMUNOPOTENTIATION: AN ANSWER TO HIV/AIDS AND CANCER?

Since the history of mankind, many ailments have puzzled scientists, over time, many of these sicknesses have been unraveled and their cure have been provided, this is thanks to the scientists who have been relentless in making humans comfortable and disease free. As one mysterious sickness gets demystified, another sickness shows up and presents a more or less different challenge than the one already taken care of; this has been the major fight faced by both scientists and everyone.

credit: flickr
Many of these sicknesses do not fit into the general definition of disease as most of them are actually systemic dysfunction or a constitution of many diseases occurring at once, therefore they cannot be cured via the normal sequence of anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic, painkilling or neutralization method of handling the shift in the normal body function.

Medical professionals can’t take care of these ailments by administration of drugs or by placing the individual on a special diet, even a combination of the later and the former proves futile as regards restoring the individual’s health state. On the extreme, these diseases attack the external systems leading to excision of the organ affected, this might be in whole or part (incision). This is seen in case of organs or parts of the organ have been silently infected. As a result of this, the individual stands a chance of losing more parts of his/her body or unfortunately, his/her life.

Scientists have paid remarkable attention to these situations, but the more they pay attention, the more the situation lingers; and most attempt only ends up reminding us of the fight we face in trying to combat these conditions. While many, we only have one option which is to learn how to co-exist with these conditions, much scientific research has already centered on how we can cope with these systemic dysfunctions and not how we can get rid of them which is a more difficult task.

On trying to equip the mass on coping with the ailments, there has been an earnest effort towards making sure that the masses are aware of these infections, their risk factors causes, places of contraction, mode of operation signs and symptoms. This is to enable the individual to have knowledge of the factors that would predispose them, and also keep them abreast of the changes accompanying the contraction of these infections. These have proven functional and have contributed immensely in curtailing the spread of these diseases and only a minority of the total population still suffers from them.

But if we must fight persistent health problems, then our body system should fight with us too; this is least applied theory in disease combating, this might be due to its cost and medical ethics as it would involve some human engineering which is unethical in medical processes, but this comes in at very extreme cases.

However, our body is equipped with strong anatomical components and physiological processes which not only maintains a balance between the internal and external environment but also keeps us away from infections and also fights the infections when they cross their barriers to get into the body. This system is known as the immune system.

The immune system confers on us the ability to resist infections and fight infections, it is however very beneficial as it performs these actions with minimal side effects on the body, many times we survive an infection without even knowing we were ever infected.

Surprising as that may sound, but this is one of the last action our immune system can perform and as already stated, it does these without having harsh effects on our body in terms of cell death, atrophy or mutation.

Many drugs and other therapeutic chemicals used externally have proven to be harmful, this can be seen in the process by which our body activates and inactivate these chemical (metabolism of xenobiotics), these foreign chemicals have adverse effects on the body organs especially the liver which is the principal organ of this process.

The immune system functions in an almost totally different route and mechanism and even keeps a record of the infections we have suffered so as to present more sophisticated attack in case of future re-occurrence, these cells are known as memory cells. They are activated defense cells that are left over after attacking the internal intimidating infection, thus keeping a record of the infections already fought. The cells involved in immunity performs their actions via cell-based mechanisms (cell-mediated) or via our body fluids (humoral immunity), via these routes, they get rid of the body cells which have malfunctioned to the extent of processing the pathogen Associated Molecular Pattern (PAMP), thus they are effective in anti-microbial, anti-viral, anti-inflammatory and apoptosis process and as such, they are well adapted to tackle.

credit: wikimedia
Only a few scientific research has been centered on harnessing this system and its mechanism to enable the body to withstand infections and some internal dysfunction in a process known as immunotherapy.

Immunotherapy enables the body to fight diseases by the enhancement or suppression of the immune response of the immune system. In cancer therapy, radiotherapy has been used even more than immunotherapy while chemotherapy and the removal of these mutated organs have been the most prevalent mechanism by these processes are harmful as rays from radiographic machines have been found to be carcinogenic, so also are some chemicals used in the manufacturing of the anti-cancer drugs. Removal of the body parts is also futile in some cases as other cells of the body might be affected already and the cancer keeps spreading throughout the system.

In HIV/AIDS, the human immune system is attacked directly and the invading virus turns the body’s immune system into its own production unit and uses the body’s resources to produce its pathogenic unit, the virion. HIV/AIDS have been combated in recent years using anti-retroviral drugs which only reduces the effect of the virus but does not totally destroy the Human Immune virus which is a retrovirus. The drug only increases the individual’s lifespan giving the person more years only to struggle with the harsh effects of the virus which matures to a syndrome. Immunotherapy is also underused in this instance.

Immunotherapy is of two forms; immunosuppression (which refers to the processes taken to reduce the immune response of the immunes system) and immunopotentiation (which refers to the accentuation of an immune system response by the administration of another substance. Immunopotentiation hence enables the immune system to present a stronger challenge to the invading or invaded virus, and also to reduce the action of anaplastic cells against DNA repair genes and prevent them from escaping the internal immune mechanism, immunopotentiation has also been applied in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

If the immune system is potent enough, it can withstand most threats it encounters, this is the sense of immunopotentiation and immunotherapy as a whole, it also tries to enable it perform this activity without causing much effect to the body. The immune system can be enhanced through the following means;

Cytokines

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Cytokines are immunomodulators produced by lymphocytes (lymphokines) or monocytes (monokines), chemokines are manufactured by other chemical means in the body, they include Tumor necrosis factor (TNF), interleukins, interferons and various other cytokines which include growth factors.

In HIV, there is immunodeficiency and also the deficiency of interleukins, the administration of this interleukin which can be manufactured artificially might improve the body’s immunity to HIV virus and enables already infected individual fight the virus.

Interferons

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Despite being subject to modifications, interferons are genetically engineered to treat viral infections, it also helps the immunes system to reduce the viability of cancer cells and thus reduce their growth rate (invasion). Interferons used at high doses are toxic to the human body thus reduced doses are being tested.

Immunization and vaccination

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Immunization introduces a mild form of the disease-causing organism into the body and induces a mild form immune response, producing memory cells and in secondary responses, the body is able to fight the disease with increased vigor. Individuals immunized against any disease is able to fight more efficiently against the specific agent.

Vaccines are also immunopotentiators, human papillomavirus (HPV) is used to prevent cervical cancer, hepatitis virus are also used in preventing liver cancer, artificial modification of these vaccines can be used to fight much more complicated cancer.

Adoptive cell transfer

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credit: wikimedia
In adoptive cell transfer, the immune cells of an individual who is disease free are cultured and transferred to another individual, the immune cells which are weaker or inactive are removed and replaced with a more viable immune cells, the injected cells recognizes the infection and fights against it. Immune stimulants also stimulates the immune system, reactivates it when weak and enables it to fight diseases.

Conclusion

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Immunotherapy and immunopotentiation are still subject to advanced medical research, it is a more complex process than the in this context as it involves genetic engineering of the system which is a very tasking and costly process, but it is proving to be the most reliable means, this is due to its effectiveness, efficiency and minimal side effect. But contemporarily, it is of more importance that we learn to live with these presently cureless diseases; refrain from the causative agents and factors and report to corresponding authority in case of unfortunate occurrence, this is to curb further occurrence and spread.

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Reference

1. Immunopotentiation -wikitionary
2. Immunotherapy -wikipedia
3. Adoptive cell transfer -wikipedia

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