How it works

SCIENTISTS are testing a new generation of cancer vaccines that use a person’s dendritic cells, a type of white blood cell, to stimulate the body’s immune system. Normally, the immune system has trouble recognising tumours because cancer cells arise from the same tissues as normal cells. But these vaccines “train” the immune cells to distinguish malignant cells from normal ones, and to attack only the cancer cells.  

1. Doctors extract a number of dendritic cells, which normally patrol for disease-producing agents.