Elliott Associate Professor of Biology Dr. Kristian M. Hargadon ’01 recently published an article on a central mechanism of melanoma resistance to immunotherapy in the British Journal of Dermatology, one of the most prestigious journals in Dermatology, where it is consistently ranked as the #1 or #2 journal in its field. Dr. Hargadon’s article highlights the diverse mechanisms by which melanoma cells evade type I and type II interferons, proteins released by various immune cell populations that typically exhibit potent anti-tumor activity. Evading the activity of these interferons has emerged as a key correlate of melanoma resistance to various immunotherapies, including immune checkpoint blockade approaches that have become the most attractive treatment options for many cancer patients. Despite the promise of these approaches, however, there remain many cancer patients who either fail to respond to immune checkpoint blockade or who experience disease relapse after a short anti-tumor immune response. Insight into mechanisms of tumor escape from interferon activity offers potential opportunities for combinatorial therapeutic interventions to improve the immune response to cancer. Such strategies are a major focus of Dr. Hargadon’s article, which can be accessed at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjd.20608