Eric Topol September 15, 2024
Discoveries of the ways cancer commandeers our cells and tissue keep expanding, as do potential treatments to counter
“Cancer doesn’t really invent anything new— it just hijacks processes that already exist.”—Michelle Monje
Cancer cells in green, hijacking the neurons in purple, from Koch Institute, at Nature
Hijacking Lipids
Recently, we learned about another type of LLM—lipid-laden macrophages—and their role in brain cancer (not large language models!) The resident macrophages of the brain, known as microglia, and monocyte-derived macrophages, form LLMs by scavenging cholesterol lipid from the myelin sheath of neurons, as schematically shown below.
As a result, there’s a triple whammy. Not only do the LLMs suppress our immune response to the cancer, such as by changes in gene expression...
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