UBC researchers discover how cancer’s “invisibility cloak” works

Researchers at UBC have made a significant discovery in the fight against cancer.

A new study means a big advancement in identifying “invisible” cancer cells.

Senior author Dr. Wilf Jefferies says they’ve have been working for a number of years to try to figure out how tumour cells escape the body’s immune mechanisms and how they are able to become invisible to the immune system.

Jefferies says a specific type of gene (IL-33) causes the cell to practically disappear during the transition between a primary tumour and a metastatic one.

“We found that if we just replaced the IL-33 gene, so we re-express IL-33 in the metastatic tumours themselves that we could resurrect the flags on the surface and resurrect immune recognition of the metastatic cell.”

It’s a major step forward in developing a way to use the body’s own immune system to fight cancer, which is something researchers have long been trying to accomplish.

The study was funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research.

Jefferies says they’ve already got funding for two more studies to advance their findings.

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