The immune system's first responders, interferons, carry within them the seeds of their own undoing — a paradox that researchers at the Salk Institute have now mapped with molecular precision. When these chemical alarm signals persist too long in the tumor environment, they trigger a chain of mitochondrial damage that ultimately silences the very immune cells they once summoned. Published in September 2026, the findings illuminate why some cancer patients stop responding to immunotherapy and point toward a specific molecular intervention — blocking prostaglandin E2 — that may restore the body'