"Inside all of us lurks an army of serial killers whose primary function is to kill again and again."
That might sound like something you'd hear in a movie preview. In fact, it's Prof. Gillian Griffiths, director of the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research in England, and she's talking not about science fiction but about a very real kind of immune system cell.
Known as cytotoxic T cells, these cellular assassins--each about one-tenth the thickness of a strand of human hair--are constantly patrolling our bodies, seeking out and destroying cells that are cancerous or infected with dangerous viruses.
If you're not sure what that might look like, watch the dramatic new video (above) produced as part of a study published in the journal Immunity on May 19, 2015.
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The time-lapse footage was created by stitching together microscopic slices of the killer cells and their quarry, according to a written statement released by the University of Cambridge. It shows T cells (orange or green blobs) encountering cancer cells (blue blobs) and injecting them with lethal proteins known as cytotoxins (red).
Go team!
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