Envision cancer sneaking around your immune system by feeding certain cells fatty snacks that make them too sleepy or bossy to help.

That’s what liver cancer does — it hijacks your body’s immune response by jamming immune cells full of fat, turning some into lazy pushovers (called exhausted T cells) and others into overbearing peacekeepers (Tregs) that tell patrolling cancer-killing cells to back off.

But scientists have a new trick up their sleeve to outmaneuver the fatty snack giving — a lab-made antibody called PLT012. It blocks a protein called CD36, which acts like a fatty-acid vacuum cleaner for these sneaky immune cells. When PLT012 steps in, it cuts off the fat supply, helping the immune system to snap out of its slump and start attacking cancer cells again.

In mice — even the tough-to-treat ones — and in human liver-cancer samples in the lab, PLT012 not only boosts cancer-killing immune cells, it also works well alongside other cancer treatments. More notably, it holds strong in high-fat environments that normally limit the effectiveness of treatments.

PLT012 is shaping up to be a potential game changer in liver cancer treatment by targeting the tumor’s tricks and offering the immune system a second wind.

The paper was published in Cancer Discovery.

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