How cells filter status updates

Social media have become an indispensable part of our everyday life. We use them constantly to screen the latest news and share pre-selected information. The cells in our body do a similar thing. Information is pre-selected and transmitted to the immune system in order to fight against unwelcome invaders, such as viruses, bacteria, parasites or cancer. This pre-selection occurs by means of a highly complex molecular machine. Biochemists have now unveiled the inner workings of this complex molecular machine.