Thread by @bloodcancer_uk

It's #ResearchSpotlight time! Today, we're shining the spotlight on Professor Francesco Forconi...

🔬 Follicular lymphoma and diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) are the two most common types of non-Hodgkin #lymphoma.

We can treat this disease, but many treatments have harsh side effects.

💊 Professor Forconi from the University of Southampton wants to find better ways to treat these diseases.

🏷️ The team are studying ‘tags’ found on the surface of lymphoma cells, which they think tell the immune system to ignore the cancer cells. This means cancerous cells are not destroyed and are allowed to divide and grow in numbers.

🎯 The team want to understand how common the tags are in follicular lymphoma and DLBCL. They want to understand how they block the immune response and to test whether targeting these tags could be targeted with drugs to treat the disease.

❗ Importantly, these tags aren’t found on healthy cells and so if treatment could be targeted at these tags, it would mean treatment would selectively kill lymphoma cells whilst leaving the healthy cells relatively untouched.

This would help create kinder treatments for people with these types of #lymphoma.

❤️ Thanks so much Prof. Forconi and team for all your hard work!