Scientists found a second way for cells to die — one that shouts for the immune system's help

Cells usually die quietly. Apoptosis, the best-known form of programmed cell death, tidies a cell away without alerting the immune system — which is one reason tumours like it. Researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, publishing in Science, have now characterised a second route, which they call baciptosis: two familiar proteins, BAK and BAX, assemble differently in the cell's power stations, spill mitochondrial DNA into the cell, and trigger inflammation and catastrophic energy failure — a death that actively calls in the immune system. The team induced baciptosis in human cancer cells whose quiet-death machinery was impaired, a defect some real cancers share. If doctors can learn to flip cancer cells into this louder death, immunotherapy could get a powerful new ally.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation