Infection and cancer trigger immune responses in humans, which associated inflammation can further promote. However, as we are all too aware, the immune system often fails to recognize and eliminate cancer cells. In fact, aspects of the immune response can even be used to a cancer cell's advantage.

On page 11, Glenn Dranoff discusses how cytokines — proteins that regulate the growth, differentiation and activation of immune cells — can promote cancer-cell growth, reduce apoptosis and facilitate metastasis. He discusses promising vaccination techniques that have been designed to recruit granulocytes and macrophages to the tumour and suggests that “combination approaches that both stimulate protective host responses and inhibit immune subversion tactics are likely to prove most efficacious” in eradicating tumours.

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