Prof. dr. Bart Neyns and his colleagues of the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences have made remarkable strides in a new treatment of cancer whereby one's own body cells are used to attack the tumor. Our immune system consists of different types of cells, including dendritic cells, that help attack the cancer. Those cells are inadequately present in tumors. Dendritic cells are therefore extracted from the patients body and in the lab they are modified in such a way that, once reinjected into the patient's body, are better equiped to the task. In other words: the body itself destroys the cancer.
It is one of the most revolutionary insights of recent years that our own body, our immune system, is a powerful weapon.