Researchers have found that tumours in melanoma patients deliberately create conditions that knock out the body's 'premier' immune defence and instead attract a weaker immune response unable to kill off the tumour's cancerous cells. The study funded by the NIHR’s Guy's and St Thomas' Biomedical Research Centre, and published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, highlights a potential antibody biomarker that could help predict prognosis and identify which patients are most likely to respond to specific treatments.