Nobel Prize-winner Ralph Steinman: Evidence That Science Is Rethinking the Immune System

How unfortunate and sad that Ralph Steinman, M.D., died just three days before learning he was a Nobel Prize for Medicine winner. The Nobel Prize committee awarded this highest prestige honor before learning of Steinman’s death from pancreatic cancer. Although Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously, the committee appears to be willing to let the award stand under such unique circumstances. This high-interest news item certainly draws extra attention to immune system science, since Dr. Steinman’s award was for his work in revealing the critical role our body’s immune function plays in the healing process. One would expect world recognition for developing yet another drug, discovering a new virus, or inventing a new invasive surgery technique. But, adding medical credibility to the immune system? Many physicians, laboratory scientists, and medical educators must be shaking their heads.

Dr. Steinman, in partnership with Bruce Beutler and Jules Hoffman, revolutionized the understanding of the immune system by discovering key principles in its activation. Back in 1973, Steinman found a new cell type called the dendritic cell which has a unique capacity to activate T-cells that attack disease carrying and maverick cells. The dendritic cells kill off infections that break through the normal cells’ protective functions. White blood cells, the combat forces of the immune system, fight infectious and tumor cells by finding them, apprehending them, and destroying them. The dendritic cells are like the cavalry, positioned where disease is most likely to enter the body—the skin, mucous membranes of the nose, lungs, and intestines. They ambush the bad cells, breaking them up into pieces, and showing the fragments to the white cells. This excites the white cells to spring into action and kill their enemy cells. I’m not making this up. I’m virtually quoting from professional medical documents. Subsequent research into dendritic cells has shown them to be crucial in several immune responses including resistance to new tumors, autoimmune diseases, and infections including AIDS.

The primary principle of integrative oncology is to enhance and strengthen the body’s natural immune system to help fight cancer while offsetting the damage being done by conventional treatment. The general concept of conventional oncology for decades has been to disregard the immune system and try to kill the cancer with chemicals, radiation, and surgery. Of course, this approach has always attacked the immune system in the process leaving it powerless against the cancer. Dr. Steinman’s discoveries support what integrative oncologists have been practicing for years. It seem the more we learn about what our bodies are designed to do, the more we understand how wrong the medical community has been to more or less ignore that truth for the past century. As for me, I’d much rather trust my cancer healing to what my body was created to do than to depend exclusively on poisonous chemicals and burning radiation. This is not about quackery and alternative medicine; it’s about pure medical science. What are your thoughts?