Hacking into macrophage attack circuits, Stanford scientists pitch a better early-warning alert system for tumors
After years of fine tuning ways to enlist the immune system in the fight against cancer, immunotherapy has taken the field by storm, with a Nobel prize and a pair of blockbuster checkpoint drugs to boast. But can immune cells help in an even broader effort — flagging malignant tumors before they are detectable by traditional instruments?
Pushing the threshold of cancer diagnoses to earlier and earlier stages of the disease is one of the Holy Grails in oncology, inspiring multimillion-dollar investments into startups like Grail. This week, a team from Stanford has chipped in with their own pitch and some mouse data to show for it.
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