Dr. Edjah Nduom’s work attempts to harness the power of the immune system to fight brain tumors. The immune system is the body’s primary way of fighting off infections, but it is also constantly monitoring the cells of our bodies for abnormalities. In this way, the immune system is also the front line of defense against the abnormal cells of cancer. Unfortunately, many cancers have found ways to hide themselves from the immune system. In the attached figure, you can see the many ways that brain tumors send signals that shut down the effector T cells that the immune system sends to fight tumors.