{"id":2855,"date":"2018-12-09T23:59:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-09T13:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/?post_type=wimr_news&p=2855"},"modified":"2024-09-30T18:26:39","modified_gmt":"2024-09-30T08:26:39","slug":"supercharging-the-immune-system","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/news\/supercharging-the-immune-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercharging the immune system"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nikola Barac suffered from a rare genetic immunodeficiency disorder, hyper IgM, which left him defenceless against life-threatening infections.<\/p>\n

\n

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Nikola and his mother, Fiona.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n

When he was four years old, an ultrasound picked up the parasite\u00a0cryptosporidium<\/em>\u00a0in his liver.<\/p>\n

Nikola\u2019s mother, Fiona Stamenkovic, said it was devastating.<\/p>\n

“I knew what it meant. I thought his liver was going to fail and he would die,” she said.<\/p>\n

Nikola received two bone marrow transplants from his younger brother, Novak, to fight the infection. It worked, but another virus,\u00a0cytomegalovirus<\/em>, flourished in its place and threatened to destroy his lungs and liver.<\/p>\n

In a final effort, Nikola’s doctors weaponised the very thing that had failed him in the first place: his immune system.<\/p>\n

He was given two rounds of T-cell immunotherapy, grown here at the Westmead Institute, which supercharged his immune system to attack the deadly infection.<\/p>\n

This time he was given the all clear.<\/p>\n

“It’s incredible,” Ms Stamenkovic said.<\/p>\n

Immunotherapy is now a promising new frontier in cancer treatment, harnessing the power of the immune system to fight cancer.<\/p>\n

The treatment involves collecting T-cells, a type of immune cell, from a simple blood draw and then engineering them in a laboratory so they are highly specialised to recognise and fight specific viruses.<\/p>\n

These T-cells are then infused into the patient and armed with their previous training, recognise and kill cells that carry the virus on their surfaces.<\/p>\n

Lead researcher Professor David Gottlieb said the treatment will benefit patients with otherwise incurable blood cancers and children born with defective immune systems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nikola Barac suffered from a rare genetic immunodeficiency disorder, hyper IgM, which left him defenceless against life-threatening infections. When he was four years old, an ultrasound picked up the parasite\u00a0cryptosporidium\u00a0in his liver. Nikola\u2019s mother, Fiona Stamenkovic, said it was devastating. “I knew what it meant. I thought his liver was going to fail and he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2856,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}}},"categories":[19],"class_list":["post-2855","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cat-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/2855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}