Most cancers are thought to evade the immune system. These cancers don’t carry very many mutations, and they aren’t infiltrated by cancer-fighting immune cells. Scientists call these cancers immunologically “cold.”
Now new research suggests such cancers aren’t as “cold” as once thought. Researchers from the La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI), UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, and UC San Diego, have found that patients with “cold” tumors actually do make cancer-fighting T cells.
This discovery opens the door to developing vaccines or therapies to increase T cell numbers and treat many more types of cancer than currently thought possible.
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