Scientists find new way to drum out skin cancer

Experimental strategy uses immune system to kill melanoma tumors


LONDON - The body’s own immune system can fight the deadly cancer melanoma if scientists can flip the system’s “off” switch to “on,” two preliminary studies suggest.

Scientists have long sought to rev up the disease-fighting cells of the immune system to fight melanoma. The new work addresses the other side of the coin, the regulatory cells that normally keep disease-fighting cells in check.

By shutting those inhibiting cells off, scientists hope to enable the disease-fighting cells to mount a continuous attack on the cancer. Two new studies of that strategy were reported this week in Prague at a European cancer research meeting.

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