Cancer cells have ways to avoid destruction by displaying proteins on their surface that turn off the body’s immune cells, or adopting genetic changes to make them less visible to the immune system, or interfering with how the immune system responds to cancer cells in other ways. Immunotherapy helps the immune system overcome these hurdles to better fight cancer.

Plants have been used as traditional medicines around the world for centuries – even millennia. With the technology we have now, Dr Tien Huynh can uncover the science behind how they work. Drawing on her Vietnamese heritage, she is particularly interested in plants from tropical Asia – including the gấc fruit (Momordica cochinchinensis).