Immunotherapy: How to train the body to fight cancer

With promising results, such new weapons are providing hope that cancer can ultimately be defeated

The human immune system is powerful and complex.

It can identify and destroy invaders of nearly infinite variety, yet spare the more than 30 trillion cells of the healthy body.

Unfortunately, the broken cells of cancer are able to retain, and boost, the “recognise and ignore me” signals of undamaged cells, letting them evade detection by the immune system. As a result, these damaged cells grow unmolested, destroying the normal physiological functioning of tissues and organs.

Armed with new insights into the interactions between cancer and the immune system, research teams are developing novel treatments to harness the full potential of the body’s