A drug for alcoholism can also treat cancer by targeting macrophages

Developing a therapy to combat cancer remains one of the most difficult challenges in medical research. Cancer owes its notorious identity to the fact that the cancer cells use the host’s own immune system to grow and spread, ultimately becoming deadly. Immune cells like macrophages, which ordinarily fight to protect normal cells, are hijacked by malignant cancer cells, and populate the environment around the tumors, becoming tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs).