Pathogens In Fruit Flies

The human immune system allows the human body to protect itself from foreign particles and pathogens. When mounting an immune response, the first stage is non-specific; this involves phagocytes which engulf and destroy pathogens using chemicals or enzymes. This response occurs without regard for the pathogens structure and the antibodies it presents (Schindler). In 2011, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Bruce A. Beutler and Jules A. Hoffmann for their work in the “activation of innate immunity” (ScienceDaily). The discovery was made in 1996 by Hoffman when observing a control trial focusing on combat of infection in fruit flies. Using fruit flies with no mutations as a control group, and fruit flies with Toll gene mutations,

He was looking for a protein receptor that would bind to lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which causes septic shock and is produced by many pathogenic bacteria. Beutler was using mice throughout his experiment when he discovered that mice that were resistant to LPS had a gene mutation. This gene mutation was later found to have similarities to the Toll gene mutation in fruit flies, discovered by Hoffman. This gene similar to the Toll gene in fruit flies was then found to be the LPS receptor. Therefore, when LPS binds to the receptor, specific signals are initiated which then cause an immune response. This proves that the Toll gene and LPS receptor, in fruit flies and mice respectively, are the initiating factor of innate immune responses (The Gate Keepers Of The Immune

Extremely abnormal cells continue to survive much longer than their normal counterparts would. Normal cells would usually be replaced whereas abnormal cells become abundant as new cells are produced unnecessarily. In 2012, 8.2 million people died of cancer, with 14.1 million new cases documented worldwide (Cancer Research UK). Traditional cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy, target all rapidly dividing cells. This causes complications as many cells divide rapidly, such as white blood cells, skin cells and hair follicles. Traditional chemotherapy targets not only the rapidly diving abnormal cells, but the above mentioned cells too. The unwanted targeting of white blood cells causes cancer patients to become immunocompromised. More recent discoveries revealed that tumours can be targeted by using drugs to attack cells based on their molecular composition and structure rather than their rapidly diving nature. Gefitinib, imatinib, trastuzumab, cetuximab, and gemtuzumab ozogamicin are among the most recently developed cancer therapies that target cancerous cells specifically due to their molecular structure. In 1998, trastuzumab, a “recombinant DNA-derived humanised monoclonal antibody” (Abou-Jawde et al.) became an FDA approved treatment for breast