Asgard teaches tumours to self‑destruct – moving closer to clinical trials

It has now been just over eight years since three Portuguese medical researchers packed their bags and moved to Lund. They brought with them ideas for a new type of immunotherapy with the potential to fight all kinds of solid tumours, and thereby go a step further than the therapies available today.

A challenge for immunotherapies in cancer treatment is that tumour cells have the ability to make themselves invisible to the immune system. They hide from the T cells — the killer cells — whose job is to eliminate them. But the three researchers had discovered a way to get around that.