image: When brain tumor grows in the head, the cancer cells suppress the immune system that seeks to eradicate it. Conversely, the immune cells such as microglia in the brain attempt to control tumor growth, and so we depict this as the battle for the brain where the cancer cells suppress the immune cells, but the immune cells attempt to fight back. The battle is won by the brain tumor cell. However, when niacin is used to reprogram or reactivate the immune system, the immune cells (microglia in this case) are now empowered to control brain tumor growth. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the Apr. 1, 2020, issue of Science Translational Medicine, published by AAAS. The paper, by S. Sarkar at University of Calgary in Calgary, AB, Canada; and colleagues was titled, "Control of brain tumor growth by reactivating myeloid cells with niacin." view more
Credit: [Credit: Sarkar <i>et al</i>.]