Question: Is the immune system able to fight Cancer on it’s own?

Ross King answered on 16 Nov 2015:

Hey Jamie,

Yes! The immune system has evolved over millions of years to help our bodies stop growing cancerous cells. There is a special type of immune cell, called ‘cytotoxic T cells’ which move around the body and hunt down cancer cells. If they find one, they will kill it immediately and clear it away so it can’t form a tumour.

Of course, sometimes our T cells can go wrong or don’t spot the cancer in time. Scientists are looking at ways to make our T cells better at finding cancer cells and killing them, and people are testing the effects of these ‘super T cells’ as we speak!