Off the clock: understanding immune cell’s circadian rhythm to improve anti-tumour therapies

We all have internal clocks. They synchronise functions such food intake, sleep, which hormones we secrete and how we use our energy, depending on whether it’s night or day. Even your immune system follows its own molecular clock, adjusting its activity to the time of day when it’s more likely to be needed. Research has unravelled the importance of our inner clocks for germ defence and inflammation, but its role is less clear in cancer.

One recent cancer treatment success story has been the use of immunotherapies. These treatments support and kick-start the patient’s own immune system to kill tumours. Immunotherapies have shown effectiveness against many different types of cancer, but are by no means a magic bullet.

Professor Cristina Lopez-Rodriguez thinks that the immune system's internal clock influences its ability to fight off cancer. She and her team are now trying to find how the time of day influences the strength of anti-tumour inflammatory immune responses and how this would affect the efficacy of anti-tumour treatments.