Cancer’s favorite escape trick may actually make it easier to kill

Article excerpt

Scientists have flipped a decades-old assumption about how cancer evades the immune system. When tumor cells disable MHC I, a molecular disguise that hides them from killer T cells, they accidentally expose themselves to a different immune weapon: CD4+ helper T cells. The finding suggests that cancer's most sophisticated hiding strategy may inadvertently create a fatal vulnerability, potentially opening new paths for immunotherapy and offering hope that the disease's defensive maneuvers could be turned against it.