When you fall down and scrape your knee, or nick yourself cutting food in the kitchen, you expect your body will react the way it always does. Human bodies have an amazing feature that helps to prevent infection, and heal wounded areas. When you are hurt the immune cells inside of you move toward your wound and patch it up to prevent any further damage to the body. However until now scientists were unaware what it was in the body that caused it to perform this amazing and critically important task.
Benefits of the discovery of the cause of immune cell migration
Thinking about immune cells in terms a small cut makes it difficult to see the scope of the discovery scientists have made at Bristol University in the U.K. For these scientists the next phase of understanding how the cells function, is direct manipulation of the cells to help aid in human recovery. One of the key scientists who aided in the discovery of the cause of immune cell migration Will Wood elaborates on the importance of being able to manipulate the cells inside of a human body, “While inflammation is critical to prevent infection, too much of a response by immune cells can cause or worsen a wide range of human diseases and conditions autoimmunity, atherosclerosis, cancer and chronic inflammation.” essentially too many immune cells migrated to one place can cause a plethora of problems inside of the body, with a wide range of possible serious complications, but being able to alter the immune cell migration process would help millions dealing with health issues related to the traveling cells.
How immune cell migration works
In research the team at Bristol University discovered the highly functional signaling pathway that alerts the body to an area where inflammation may be necessary, and sends more Immune cells that space. A press release from Bristol University explains exactly how the cell migration functions, “After dissecting the signaling occurring in immune cells responding to wound induced (H2O2), the team found that it involved a well-established immune signaling pathway used in vertebrate adaptive immune responses.” Discovering the reason that immune cells in the human body function in an attempt to aid us in recovery, will not only change the way we view human biology, but change the way we treat patients in modern medicine. It could even lead to longer healthier lives for humans across the board.
