Pancreatic tumors use clotting pathway to build immune shields, study finds
Researchers at Mount Sinai have discovered that pancreatic cancer cells use the body's blood-clotting pathway to create protective niches that shield tumors from the immune system. This mechanism helps explain why pancreatic cancer is resistant to immunotherapy and suggests new targets for treatment.
Why it matters
Understanding how tumors evade the immune system is critical for developing more effective cancer therapies, particularly for highly lethal diseases like pancreatic cancer.
edited by Sadie Harley , reviewed by Robert Egan
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Add as preferred source Scheme of the proposed experimental model. Credit: Nature (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-11002-8 Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have found that small populations of pancreatic cancer cells can create localized immune-protective niches that shield tumors from immune attack. The finding could open new avenues for making immunotherapy more effective against one of the deadliest forms of cancer.
The findings , published in Nature , show that a small number of pancreatic cancer cells activate genes that stabilize fibrin, a protein that forms a meshwork involved in blood clotting.
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