Attract and Attack

Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC; a section labeled fluorescently left) and basal cell carcinoma (BCC; right) are both common skin cancers but differ in their responses to immunotherapy (drugs that promote the immune system to clear the cancer cells). This study finds that BCC's reduced likelihood of responding is due to having, compared to SCC, less of the molecule HLA-1 (revealed here with green fluorescence), which in turn leads to fewer of the immune system's T cells being attracted to the tumour to attack. Finding that the epigenetic regulator FOXC1 underlies the low levels of HLA-1, opens therapeutic avenues

Read the published research article here

Written by Lindsey Goff

Lindsey Goff

Editor-in-Chief

Formerly immunologist for Cancer Research UK, Lindsey has since moved into the field of scientific publishing. She looks after all BPoD editorial matters.

• Image from work by Tomonori Oka and colleagues
• Center for Cancer Immunology and Cutaneous Biology Research Center, Department of Dermatology and Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
• Published in Cell Reports, May 2025