Macrophages Engulf Tumors 1

Macrophages Engulf Tumors 1

Ali Roghanian, Sonya James, Gessa Sugiyarto, Mark Cragg, University of Southampton

MIT Department of Biology, Koch Institute at MIT

The submitted image depicts human blood cancer cells flagged up using drugs called monoclonal antibodies for uptake and engulfment by a specialized subset of human white blood cells called phagocytes or macrophages. Once macrophages recognize and ‘eat’ the treated cancer cells away from the system, they withdraw their long extensions, shrink down and start breaking the ingested cancer cells down. All three stages of this fascinating and fundamental immunological process can be seen in the acquired fluorescent image.   

See the winning version of this image here.

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